{"id":25913,"date":"2026-10-06T20:44:50","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T20:44:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/conflicts\/25913\/"},"modified":"2026-10-06T20:44:50","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T20:44:50","slug":"an-entrepreneur-has-been-accused-of-treason-over-ukraines-military-levy-this-is-the-first-known-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/conflicts\/25913\/","title":{"rendered":"An entrepreneur has been accused of treason over Ukraine\u2019s military levy. This is the first known case."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>61-year-old Oleg Varyukhin has been charged with treason (Article 275 of\u00a0the Criminal Code) because of\u00a0the mandatory military levy he\u00a0paid in\u00a0Ukraine as\u00a0an\u00a0entrepreneur. This is\u00a0the first known case in\u00a0which paying taxes into the Ukrainian budget has formed the basis for a\u00a0treason charge, <a href=\"https:\/\/zona.media\/article\/2026\/10\/05\/varyukhin\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Mediazona has found out<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Varyukhin had lived in\u00a0Ukraine since the late 1990s and for many years ran a\u00a0small cosmetics and perfume shop there. The military levy was introduced in\u00a0the country in\u00a02014 to\u00a0fund the army. As\u00a0lawyer Yurii Shel emphasises, this payment was compulsory: Varyukhin could not refuse it\u00a0or\u00a0influence how the state made use of\u00a0the collected funds.<\/p>\n<p>In\u00a0the spring of\u00a02026, Varyukhin came to\u00a0Russia for the first time in\u00a0many years to\u00a0sort out paperwork. He\u00a0had never had an\u00a0internal Russian passport, and his foreign passport expired long\u00a0ago. At\u00a0Vnukovo Airport he\u00a0was sent for additional checks. FSB officers asked him to\u00a0unlock his phone and found saved receipts for tax payments and the details of\u00a0the Ukrainian tax authorities.<\/p>\n<p>After this, Varyukhin was arrested four times in\u00a0a\u00a0row for 15 days each, on\u00a0charges of\u00a0petty hooliganism. Two months later, he\u00a0was sent to\u00a0a\u00a0pre-trial detention centre, this time accused of\u00a0treason.<\/p>\n<p>Varyukhin maintains that he\u00a0has never received a\u00a0Russian passport, and since the collapse of\u00a0the USSR has not become a\u00a0Russian citizen and therefore cannot be\u00a0held responsible for a\u00a0crime against the country. The man\u2019s lawyer called the charges absurd. The court considers Varyukhin a\u00a0Russian citizen. In\u00a0September his detention was extended until 21 December, with the court noting that the accused is\u00a0\u201cprone to\u00a0constantly changing his place of\u00a0residence\u201d and \u201cpossesses skills in\u00a0keeping a\u00a0low profile.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"61-year-old Oleg Varyukhin has been charged with treason (Article 275 of\u00a0the Criminal Code) because of\u00a0the mandatory military levy&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25914,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[17687,24,2404,17689,17692,17696,17690,17703,17702,17695,17691,17686,17701,17694,17699,17700,17688,17693,17698,17697],"class_list":["post-25913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ukraine-russia","tag-ovd-info","tag-ukraine","tag-ukraine-military","tag-17689","tag-17692","tag-17696","tag-17690","tag-17703","tag-17702","tag-17695","tag-17691","tag-17686","tag-17701","tag-17694","tag-17699","tag-17700","tag-17688","tag-17693","tag-17698","tag-17697"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@conflicts\/117395922851966518","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/conflicts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/conflicts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/conflicts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/conflicts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/conflicts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/conflicts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25913\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/conflicts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/conflicts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/conflicts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/conflicts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}