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Moldovan border guards cut off channel for transfer of draft dodgers from Ukraine

The police said the suspects charged each evader $10,000

CHISINAU, December 24. /TASS/. Another group that organized illegal migration of draft-dodging Ukrainians has been eliminated in Moldova, the border police said.

The police said the suspects charged each evader $10,000.

"Members of the organized criminal group facilitated the illegal entry of Ukrainian citizens, their stay and transit through the territory of the Republic of Moldova, facilitating the illegal crossing of the state border with Ukraine," the police said in a statement on their website. It said the draft dodgers were transported to the EU. The border guards searched the houses of the suspects, some of them are wanted. One of them was detained for 72 hours - according to the investigators, he was the head of the group.

Since the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine, the Moldovan border police have detained border violators of military age almost every week. Former Interior Minister Adrian Efros said that over 800 criminal cases related to illegal migration from Ukraine have been opened during this time.

Ruslan Galushka, head of the republic's border police, said in an interview with TV-8 that the number of Ukrainian draft dodgers who fled to Moldova from mobilization has increased two and a half times over the past year due to the deteriorating situation at the front. According to him, about 20,000 such violations were registered during this period.

Galushka said that violators cross the Moldovan border and do not hide, but seek asylum in Moldova, which precludes their holding accountable for illegally crossing the border. According to him, most of these people then move to EU countries. To strengthen the Moldovan border, Western donors provided the border guards with night vision devices and drones.

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