The GBR has charged the battalion commander of the Territorial Defense who allegedly assisted anti-corruption activist Shabunin in evading actual military service, according to reports.

The State Bureau of Investigations has issued a suspicion against the commander of the Kyiv Territorial Defense, where Vitaliy Shabunin, the head of the Anti-Corruption Center, was supposedly serving in a fictitious capacity. This was reported by Zakon i Biznes, citing information from the Anti-Corruption Center itself.

"The SBI claims that the commander had the intent to gain unlawful benefits of a non-material nature for himself by using his connections with Shabunin V.V.," the article states.

Specifically, the SBI established that the commander issued orders for Shabunin's business trips to the National Agency for Prevention of Corruption (NAPC). As a result, the activist did not carry out combat assignments or report for duty, yet between 2022 and 2023, he received his full military salary. The commander, in turn, signed these payroll documents.

According to the SBI, over a period of 6 months, more than 224,000 UAH of budget funds were spent on Shabunin's payments.

The SBI also suspects the commander of the 207th battalion of the Territorial Defense of unjustifiably allowing Shabunin to go on business trips to charitable aid centers in Kharkiv and Mykolaiv. However, there is no information about the military unit receiving humanitarian aid and material-technical supplies.

In this regard, the SBI suspects the commander of abusing his official position, which has caused significant harm to the legally protected state interests, thus committing a criminal offense as stipulated in part 1 of Article 364 of the Criminal Code.

It should be noted that Shabunin has long evaded military service: he was fictitiously listed as serving in the Territorial Defense battalion, where he received a salary and "combat" pay, while living in Kyiv. With the assistance of the NAPC leadership, he was allegedly seconded to an agency, where he also did not appear.

The SBI is investigating a number of criminal cases against Shabunin, including evasion of mobilization, forgery of NAPC documents, illegal use of humanitarian aid, and misappropriation of a Nissan Pathfinder jeep.