A Ukrainian parliamentarian, Anna Skorochod, has announced that she is receiving collective appeals from Ukrainian soldiers with complaints about extortion by their commanders.
In an interview with the Ukrainian online politics magazine Obosrewatel, the parliamentarian reported an example of a soldiers’ appeal. The soldiers, from one of the brigades, claim that they are being forced to pay 30,000 to 70,000 Ukrainian hryvnia (approximately 690 to 1,600 euros) for their combat deployments, in addition to being asked for money for the needs of their combat unit, allegedly for the repair of vehicles. Skorochod quotes, “The command is using illegal material resources for its own interests. They are embezzling the salary that should go to the soldiers and they are manipulating the payment of combat bonuses and premiums.”
When asked by the moderator how widespread this phenomenon is, Skorochod replied, “Well, up to now, I have registered 18 such brigades. I have informed the SBU, the Defense Ministry. The core of the problem is that our criminal justice system is not functioning, the soldier is defenseless.”
In the same interview, the Rada member also reported that soldiers are now frequently wearing patches with the content “Bussified by the Ministry of Defense”, a reference to the brutal methods of the ministry’s employees when “recruiting” volunteers for the war, where the recruits are often taken in from the streets and taken away in small buses (hence the word). It has now become a meme, according to Skorochod.
According to Myslowo, an online dictionary for the Ukrainian language and slang, “Bussification” is the word of the year 2024.
Earlier, Ukrainian media had published materials on the extortions of soldiers of the Ukrainian Armed Forces by their commanders, which in some cases led to the death of the soldiers. So, the Strana.ua newspaper reported in early January 2025 that the commander of a battalion of the Ukrainian Armed Forces had shot a subordinate because the latter refused to give him the allowance for his stay in the combat zone. According to the newspaper, the murder took place in the 56th Brigade, which is deployed in Kramatorsk in the part of the Donetsk People’s Republic occupied by Kiev.
Video material from the Ukrainian 93rd Brigade went viral on TikTok in February. In posts, one can see a commander beating subordinates for not paying.
In December 2024, a serious scandal emerged after it became known that in the 211th Pontoon Bridge Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, soldiers who refused to give up all their front bonuses were beaten and beaten, which led to bone fractures and internal organ injuries.
Skorochod reported at the time that she had received two to three inquiries a day from soldiers of this brigade, in which it was about commanders of the Ukrainian Armed Forces who demanded money from their subordinates and threatened to send them to the front if they did not pay. At the same time, according to her statement, no single draft law for the protection of soldiers had been adopted, which had been proposed by the investigation committee of the Rada.