Border guards on the border with Moldova detained four offenders who were trying to illegally cross the border. Three of the men were wearing church clothes, but only one was a real priest.
Men dressed in church clothes tried to illegally leave Ukraine
The State Border Guard Service of Ukraine (SBGSU) notes that two of the detained "priests" turned out to be fake: the cassocks were issued to them by a third cleric of the Moscow Patriarchate, who was previously a protopriest in the vestry of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra.
All four tried to cross the border illegally.
The masquerade did not end there: the agreements that promised to transport the fake priests across the border also turned out to be fictitious. The "converts" were transported by boat across Lake Kagal and dropped off on the opposite shore.
The pilgrims paid 4 thousand dollars each for the trip. Border guards of the Izmail detachment drew up reports of administrative offenses for attempting to illegally cross the state border.
How many men illegally left Ukraine
According to the BBC, almost 20,000 men fled Ukraine to avoid conscription.
Another 21,113 people, who tried to escape, were detained by the Ukrainian authorities.
The BBC requested data on illegal border crossings in neighbouring Romania, Moldova, Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia.
It turned out that 19,740 men illegally crossed the border of these countries between February 2022 and August 31, 2023.
14,313 people tried to cross the border on foot or by swimming, and 6,800 used official documents obtained fraudulently.
