How Pro-Russian Telegram Channels Reacted to Volodymyr Zelenskyy's Decree on Medical and Social Assessment Commission (MSEC) Reform.
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In early October, the State Bureau of Investigation of Ukraine (SBI) conducted a search at the residence of Tetiana Krupa, head of the Khmelnytskyi Regional Centre for Medical and Social Assessment and a regional council deputy from the Servant of the People party, along with her son Oleksandr, who heads the regional Pension Fund of Ukraine. During the search, $6 million was seized. According to the SBI, the money was payment for illegally certifying disabilities.
On 16 October, Yurii Butusov, editor-in-chief of Censor.net, published an investigation revealing that 51 prosecutors in the Khmelnytskyi region, including regional prosecutor Oleksii Oliinyk, had obtained fraudulent second-degree disability certificates and corresponding pensions. Butusov published a list of these prosecutors' names. Dozens of media outlets reported on these and other cases where officials across various regions had illegally obtained disability certificates (which enables them to avoid mobilisation or receive disability pensions whilst being exempt from service).
This led to a series of decisions by the president, government, and National Security and Defence Council (NSDC). On 22 October, Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed a decree empowering the NSDC's decision "On Countering Corruption and Other Offences During Disability Assessment of Public Officials". Under point 1, the NSDC recommends that the Prosecutor General's Office, Security Service, State Bureau of Investigation, National Police, and National Anti-Corruption Bureau report within one month on their response measures and investigations into disability assessment violations, and "propose appropriate personnel and organisational decisions" based on their findings.
According to point 2, the Cabinet of Ministers must ensure within one week that the Ministry of Health, SBI, State Security Service Ukraine, National Police, and military-civil administrations establish working groups to review disability assessment decisions for public officials. The Pension Fund, together with SBI, National Police, and Security Service staff, must conduct an audit of disability pension payments to public officials within one week. The Ministry of Health and Ministry of Digital Transformation must submit a plan to the Government within two weeks for "digitising all stages of medical and social assessment commissions".
Under section "d" of point 2, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine must also ensure: "Together with the Ministry of Health of Ukraine, within one month, a draft law on amendments to certain Ukrainian laws regarding the introduction of assessment for persons with limitations in daily functioning, developed to ensure urgent reform of the medical and social assessment system in Ukraine, specifically providing for the dissolution of medical and social assessment commissions by 31 December 2024."
These MSEC members are the only public servants in Ukraine responsible for determining degrees of incapacity and disability, and identifying needs for prosthetics and rehabilitation. The Cabinet of Ministers must urgently develop and submit to Parliament draft laws that would newly regulate incapacity determination, social guarantees for reformed commission employees, and salary and pension calculations for prosecution service employees, among other matters.
In a video address on October 22, Volodymyr Zelenskyy explained that among the reasons for dismantling MSEC were cases where officials acquired fraudulent disability statuses through personal connections. He pointed out that genuine veterans who had been injured during combat often struggled to receive appropriate disability status and the corresponding benefits. The President also noted that to improve the process of establishing disability statuses, it was necessary to implement digital technologies, which would help prevent abuse and make the system more transparent.
"There are hundreds of such cases, obviously unwarranted disability statuses among officials in customs, tax authorities, the Pension Fund system, and local administrations. All of this requires thorough and prompt investigation. The MSEC system must be eliminated," said Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
On the same day, the Prime Minister of Ukraine, Denys Shmyhal, announced on his Telegram channel that, following the President's decree, "the leadership of the Central Medical-Social Expert Commission had been dismissed, as well as the heads of the relevant department of the Ministry of Health responsible for coordinating MSEC activities." Over the next three months, there will be a review and reevaluation of unwarranted disability decisions issued by MSEC, especially concerning officials.
"In place of MSEC, a digital, transparent, European model will be introduced. Additionally, I have instructed the Minister of Health to submit all necessary regulatory documents and draft laws to the Cabinet of Ministers for consideration by no later than November 1, to complete the reform of MSEC and implement a new European model," reads a message on Denys Shmyhal’s Telegram channel.
The NSDC meeting followed recent revelations of illicit enrichment among MSEC employees. Furthermore, Ukraine’s Prosecutor General, Andrii Kostin, resigned after media reports revealed that 46 prosecutors from the Khmelnytskyi region had obtained disability certifications through MSEC corruption, without due justification, to secure the legal grounds for such statuses.
"In 2024, based on materials from the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), 64 MSEC officials were suspected of committing crimes, and nine others have already been convicted. Additionally, on the initiative of the Ukrainian security service, 4,106 disability certifications issued on the basis of forged documents were annulled," according to an October 22 post on the SBU's Telegram channel. The announcement also reported that the security service uncovered and dismantled eight organized crime groups involving MSEC representatives in various regions of Ukraine. Specifically, these groups included 13 specialists in the Kharkiv region, 29 in Rivne, and four in Zakarpattia.
Even though the primary news sources about corruption in MSEC were state representatives and law enforcement agencies, pro-Russian Telegram channels accused the state of inaction. The analytics company LetsData provided 57 posts from pro-Russian Telegram channels in which propagandists discussed the decision to reform MSEC on October 22, 2024.
Seven of these posts specifically addressed the latest corruption charges against the head of the Mykolaiv regional MSEC. On October 22, during a search, SBU officers discovered $450,000 belonging to her and her son, a medical student. "The official had arranged a second disability group status for herself and her son — ‘you get what you protect,’” stated a post in a Telegram channel with 37,000 subscribers.
"When we reported that all bank safety deposit boxes in cities and districts were full, this is what we meant — they're all stuffed with cash. And it's not just the prosecutors and MSEC; we still have the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Military Commissariat, courts, and other local officials," another channel with 434,000 subscribers commented.
In these and similar posts, propagandists attempted to portray the Ukrainian state as chronically corrupt, as though law enforcement had only just begun tackling corruption in Ukraine. “Tell me, please, was nothing known about MSEC operations earlier? Were all these rates and schemes set up by these Soviet-era ladies? No one pays bribes anywhere, right? And no agency has ever known or even suspected this before, right? So, what’s the point of this circus then?” wrote the Telegram channel "Borodataya Babushka" (Bearded Grandma), which has 22,900 subscribers.
"MSEC reform as the closure of the only accessible means of avoiding mobilization"
Currently, no draft laws have been proposed to implement the NSDC’s decision to reform the MSEC. However, propagandists are already developing arguments to criticize the reform, basing their critique on preliminary proposals by Ukrainian experts regarding the substance of the upcoming draft laws. At 3:00 p.m., "Ukrainian Pravda" published a blog by Vitaliy Shabunin, chairman of the Anti-Corruption Action Center, where he shared his vision for MSEC reform. Shabunin suggested two main steps: first, the “digitalization of processes from diagnosis to disability certification,” and second, an audit of MSEC decisions.
"If acted upon quickly, these changes could be implemented in about two months. And while the Ministry of Health team managed to fail on MSEC digitalization over three years, even during the war, Ukraine has at least two teams that could help expedite this process. These are the Ministry of Digital Transformation team, led by Mykhailo Fedorov, and the digital transformation team from the Ministry of Defense," Vitaliy Shabunin wrote.
The first video about the NSDC meeting on MSEC was posted on Volodymyr Zelenskyy's Facebook page around 5:00 p.m. Shortly afterward, initial media reports on the NSDC decision appeared, including on the Ukrainian Pravda. President Zelenskyy's address, summarizing the meeting results, was published at 6:37 p.m.
However, propagandists soon turned their criticism toward Shabunin himself:
“Amidst relentless corruption, they decided to tighten the screws even on those trying to escape Zelenskyy's mobilization. Take note, this is proudly announced by Shabunin, who himself dodges the army and has never spent a day on the front line, despite saying otherwise,” stated a Telegram channel with 471,000 subscribers.
In another channel with 18,000 followers, the notion of “tightening the screws” was amplified with comments about a supposed shortage of people available for mobilization: “As I mentioned earlier, scraping the last 'Tarases' from the bottom of the pot, Ukraine is now going after those profiting from handing out exemptions… Those who paid tens of thousands but didn’t use it to leave Ukraine will now pay for their complacency.”
The idea that “Ukrainians are now losing one of the last, albeit corrupt, ways of avoiding the ‘morgue-lization’” was repeated in another propagandist Telegram channel with 470,000 subscribers.
"Ukrainians will have to pay again and more"
In the MSEC reform, propagandists saw an opportunity for exploitation. A propagandist with 474,000 subscribers on Telegram claimed that "everyone who paid for certificates will have to pay again, and more."
In a Telegram channel with 470,000 subscribers, they accused President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of benefiting from new opportunities for corruption:
"This isn't just about liquidating MSEC but creating an agency to replace it—one that Zelenskyy and his crew will fully control. Corruption for 'the right people' stays, disabilities are revoked to the maximum, and an appearance of activity is created. Quite a performance!"
Two hours later, they posted again: “As the past few years have shown, there’s nothing more corrupt and inefficient in Ukraine than ‘European digitalization and transparency.’”
Propagandists also attempted to discredit the MSEC reform initiatives. Following reports on dozens of officials within the MSEC, entrusted by the state with specific functions, propagandists generalized that the entire state is corrupt or accused state representatives of corruption, even when there was no indication from law enforcement of any issues. In particular, pro-Russian Telegram channels accused employees of the Office of the President of Ukraine or Volodymyr Zelenskyy himself.
Even though the primary sources of information about the detentions were state representatives—law enforcement officers—this fact underscores that officials are indeed performing their duties effectively.
According to the National Agency of Ukraine on Civil Service, as of May 2, 2024, there were 159,333 civil servants in Ukraine, each performing a range of functions. Generalizing isolated corruption cases across the entire public administration system or presenting specific individuals entrusted with certain state functions as representatives of the whole is misleading. For propagandists, however, such generalizations are part of their work and topics they regularly address, while for citizens, constructive participation in the MSEC reform process remains critical. This includes public oversight of the development of relevant legislation, monitoring the implementation of digital solutions, and ensuring the transparency of the new system.
One of the key roles of a democratic state is to uphold the equality of all citizens before the law and to enforce the principle that violations should not go unpunished. In contrast, propagandists portray corrupt officials as “saviors from illegal mobilization,” while efforts to combat corruption are framed as “tightening the screws” or “replacing people in the flow of money.” Such approaches excuse criminal behaviour and erode trust in state institutions, which is equally dangerous during and outside times of armed conflict. Effective governance is crucial at all times. Prosecuting and sentencing those involved in MSEC corruption will play a key role in restoring trust in the recruitment and mobilization processes and will serve as a testament to the resilience of state institutions during the war.
Propagandists have also attempted to diminish the MSEC reform initiatives. Reports of crimes committed by several dozen officials of medical and social assessment commissions, who were state-authorised to perform specific functions, indeed indicate corruption in this sector and the existence of beneficiaries among other state representatives and citizens. However, propagandists make sweeping generalisations that the entire state is corrupt. Yet the primary sources of information about the MSEC staff arrests were state representatives themselves—law enforcement officers. Moreover, law enforcement responded to Yurii Butusov's publication and began investigating disability certifications of prosecutors and other civil servants. This 'detail' could lead to the conclusion that state representatives are actually trying to combat corruption. However, the propagandists' goal is to devalue these efforts and manipulate facts, attempting to convince their audience that the state is entirely corrupt.
As of 2 May 2024, according to the National Agency of Ukraine on Civil Service, there were 159,333 civil servants in Ukraine performing numerous functions. However, to heighten distrust in the state, propagandists focused on selective aspects of state activities.
Main page illustration: Natalia Lobach
