A fraudster will stand trial in Lviv for swindling 2 million hryvnias from the family of a missing soldier

Prosecutors from the Halych District Prosecutor’s Office in Lviv have filed an indictment against a resident of the Lviv region who defrauded the relatives of a missing serviceman out of more than 2.1 million hryvnias. 

This was reported by the Office of the Prosecutor General.

In March 2025, the perpetrator met with the father of the missing soldier and assured him that he had connections in the special services and the Coordination Headquarters to secure the return of his son’s body. In reality, the man merely pretended to conduct search operations, constantly demanding money for fictitious trips, even though he never left the region.

Over the course of five months, the fraudster received funds from the soldier’s brother, and after the final payment, he claimed that the missing soldier was allegedly alive and being held in a pretrial detention center in the Russian city of Voronezh. The family uncovered the deception after contacting the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, where information about the soldier’s presence in Russia was refuted. Following this, the victims turned to law enforcement agencies to bring the perpetrator to justice.

The defendant’s actions were classified under Part 5 of Article 190 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine as fraud on an especially large scale. The investigation established that the perpetrator deliberately exploited the vulnerable state of the relatives for his own enrichment by providing knowingly false information about the soldier’s fate. Currently, the case materials are under review in court, and the defendant faces severe punishment under current legislation for exploiting the war with Russia.

As a reminder, the SBU has uncovered new schemes for evading mobilization across Ukraine.

Also, in Odesa, a fraudster was detained who promised to “help” people avoid mobilization in exchange for money.