Presidential front-runner Volodymyr Zelenskiy received notices from the armed forces four times after Russian-led forces started the bloody Donbas war in April 2014 that has so far killed more than 10,300 people. The notices require the person to show up at the recruiting station, which Zelenskiy supposedly didn’t do.
Zelenskiy, 41, is running to become Ukraine’s sixth president against incumbent Petro Poroshenko and is slated to win in the run-off election by a landslide on April 21, according to polls.
Zelenskiy’s campaign team didn’t immediately respond to an emailed request for comment and two spokespersons were not reachable by phone.
The Defense Ministry said in a statement published on April 13 that the politically untested comedian was sent four service notices at an address in his hometown of Kryvyi Rih in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast where he has been registered since December 2008.
However, he has resided mostly in Kyiv since that time. His official address that shows up in companies registry is also a Kyiv one.
The first notice came on April 15, 2014 and the last of four was issued on May 10, 2015.
The defense ministry’s statement was in response to inquiries on the matter submitted by two lawmakers each from the Bloc of Petro Poroshenko, with 135 members, and National Front, with 81 members, that are part of the ruling parliamentary coalition loyal to Zelenskiy’s election competitor Poroshenko. Respectively, they are Oleksandr Bryhynets and Yuliy Mamchur, and Tetyana Chornovol and Mykhailo Bondar.
The political newcomer’s mother, Rymma Zelenska, told local Hromadske media outlet on April 12 that she never received army service notices.
Six troop mobilizations have taken place since the Russian-stoked war started in the two easternmost regions of Luhansk and Donetsk, following Moscow’s takeover of the Crimean peninsula in March 2014. More than 1.5 million people have been uprooted from their homes as a result.
The post Defense Ministry: Zelenskiy called to military recruiting station 4 times, didn’t show up appeared first on KyivPost.
