Commander of the 211th Pontoon-Bridge Brigade Oleh Poberezhnyuk was sent into custody

The commander of the 211th Pontoon-Bridge Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Support Forces Oleh Poberezhnyuk has been taken into custody. He is suspected of abuse of office.

This was reported by the Prosecutor Generalʼs Office.

Poberezhnyuk has the right to post bail of 908 400 hryvnias.

On December 17, Poberezhnyuk was reported on suspicion of abuse of office.

According to the investigation, in the fall of 2023, he sent four fighters to the Khmelnytskyi region to build him a house.

According to the documents, the military were in the Kherson region and even received payments of 100 thousand hryvnias per day "at zero".

Poberezhnyukʼs lawyer Mykola Omelyanyuk said that the report of suspicion is "far-fetched". According to him, his client did not involve his subordinates in the construction, which, according to him, began not in 2023, but in 2024. The lawyer asked not to take his client into custody, and also to reinstate the commander of the military unit, a "Graty" correspondent reports from the courtroom.

What preceded

The publication "Ukrainska Pravda" published an article stating that Vladyslav Pastukh, the godson of the commander of the 211th Pontoon-Bridge Brigade Oleh Poberezhnyuk physically abused the battalionʼs soldiers and demanded money for not drawing up reports on soldiers intoxicated.

After public outcry, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksandr Syrsky initiated an investigation into these facts. At the same time, the commander of the military unit was suspended from duty.

The Main Inspectorate of the Ministry of Defense will also verify the facts regarding the alleged abuse of soldiers and family contracts in the 211th Pontoon-Bridge Brigade, Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said.

On December 16, 2024, the Ternopil Specialized Prosecutorʼs Office in the Defense Sector launched a pre-trial investigation into the case of alleged violence by command personnel against subordinates.

The criminal proceedings are investigating possible illegal actions by the brigade officers — they allegedly physically abused the servicemen and extorted money from them.

The case will be handled by the State Bureau of Investigation. They emphasized that SBI had not previously received any materials about this situation in the 211th Pontoon-Bridge Brigade, either from official parties or from the brigadeʼs fighters.

Law enforcement officers have already conducted searches at the military unit, the residence of the commander, servicemen, and at the construction site. They seized documents and other physical evidence of illegal activities.

The General Staff reported that an official check had already been conducted in September of this year on certain facts reported by the Ukrainian Police. Based on its results, criminal proceedings were initiated. The General Staff did not specify what facts were in question, but presumably the case concerns an incident when Brigadier General Poberezhnyuk sent four soldiers to the Khmelnytskyi region to build him a house.

The brigadeʼs press service, on behalf of Brigadier General Poberezhnyuk, did not comment on the case of extortion and abuse of servicemen by Vladyslav Pastukh. They only said that his father Valeriy Pastukh, who is Poberezhnyukʼs compadre and deputy, is not responsible for his sonʼs actions, since he was never directly subordinate to him.

• You can read more about the case of the 211th Pontoon-Bridge Brigade and what the command is accused of here.

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