Businessman Hennadiy Korbanʼs passport was confiscated at the border due to “deprivation of citizenship”. He turned to Zelensky

The businessman and head of the defense staff of the city of Dnipro, Hennadiy Korban, had his passport confiscated during customs control. The reason is the deprivation of citizenship.

Korban confirmed this information in correspondence with Babel.

Korban did not answer the question at which checkpoint it happened and what he would do next. Later, Korban wrote on Facebook that he is currently entering Ukraine at the Smilnytsia border crossing point with Poland. His passport of a citizen of Ukraine was confiscated and an act of seizure of the document was issued. Korban also asked President Volodymyr Zelensky whether it is possible to resolve this "misunderstanding".

Korbanʼs lawyer Andriy Yosypov, in a comment to "Ukrainian Pravda", said that representatives of the Security Service of Ukraine, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau, and the State Bureau of Investigation had arrived at the border. Yesterday, July 21, Babelʼs interlocutor in the SBU confirmed that the Security Service has an order not to let Korban into Ukraine.

On July 11, Hennadiy Korban published a post on Facebook about a short seven-day vacation to see his seven-year-old son in Europe, whom he had not seen for six months. The day before, Korban told "Babel" that he would return to Ukraine.

Shortly before his return to Ukraine, when information about the possible deprivation of his citizenship appeared in the media, Korban told Babel that he had no other passports.

• On July 20, "Ukrainian Pravda" and a number of Ukrainian mass media, citing their own sources in law enforcement agencies, the Presidentʼs Office and the leadership of the "Servant of the People" faction, reported that the president may sign a decree on the deprivation of citizenship of the head of the Dnipro Territorial Defense Staff Hennadiy Korban, MP Vadym Rabinovych and oligarch Ihor Kolomoiskyi. "Babel" could not get official confirmation of this information. Neither the press secretary of the president, Serhiy Nikiforov, nor the advisors of the head of the Office of the President, nor the secretary of the National Security Council, Oleksiy Danilov, answered clarifying questions.
• In the evening of July 21, MP of "Batkivshchyna" Serhii Vlasenko published a photo of the July 18 decree on the deprivation of Ukrainian citizenship of 10 people. The list included Korban, Kolomoiskyi and Rabinovych, as well as the current MP from "Servant of the People" Ihor Vasylkovskyi. The authenticity of the document has not been confirmed, there is no signature of Zelensky on the scan of the decree. The decree is numbered 502. Decrees No. 501 and No. 504 are publicly published on the presidentʼs website, but there are no decrees No. 502 and No. 503.