A soldier was demanded to pay $20,000 for a transfer to the rear

Three military personnel and one civilian have been notified of their status as suspects in connection with the extortion of $20,000 in exchange for transferring a soldier to a rear unit in Dnipro. The court has already ordered pretrial detention for all four suspects, with the option of posting bail.

According to the investigation, the soldier—a driver-observer in an anti-aircraft machine gun squad—initially demanded $16,000 from a soldier’s acquaintance in exchange for influencing officials, threatening negative consequences in case of refusal. He recruited another servicemember, who is under the command of the unit commander, to participate in the scheme.

In late June 2026, the amount of the illegal benefit was increased to $20,000, of which the extortionists received $10,000 that same day. At that time, a civilian accomplice and a colonel—the head of the civil-military cooperation department at the headquarters of an army corps of the Armed Forces of Ukraine—joined the scheme.