The head of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksandr Syrskyi met with members of the public, including blogger and volunteer Serhii Sternenko. The meeting was preceded by a conflict due to the announcement of Sternenko as a wanted man due to an alleged failure to appear in the teritorial recruit center (TRC).
This was reported by the press service of the General Staff.
The meeting was also attended by blogger Ihor Lachenkov, founder of the Dignitas charity fund Lyubov Shypovych and co-founder of the NGO "Princip" Lyubov Halan.
They discussed a number of issues about the activities of the Defense Forces of Ukraine: from technological innovations to "current problems of the consolidation of society around the army." The General Staff emphasized that such meetings "are useful given the possibility of a constructive discussion."
"Such a practice will contribute to the leveling of the enemyʼs destructive influence on the personnel and Ukrainian society in the future," the General Staff added.
Sternenko himself writes that at the meeting he spoke about the creation of an effective mechanism for changing the place of service, the need to assess the effectiveness of commanders and structural and organizational issues, as well as about the further development of unmanned systems.
What preceded
On Thursday, November 7, Serhii Sternenko wrote that he learned from the Russian propaganda media Russia Today and Strana.ua, which is banned in Ukraine, that he was allegedly wanted by the Prymorsky TRC and forwarded the document to the police. As the blogger notes, the police did not inform him about this.
"The summons was allegedly sent to me in Odesa, where I moved from 6 years ago. In "Rezerve+" back in May, I indicated my address in Kyiv, I am attaching a screenshot. Nothing came here. The summons went neither to the address of residence nor to the registration," he added.
According to Sternenko, there is no wanted notice in the "Reserve+" application. He believes that this could be "a salute from the army system for criticism and calls for reform that our military is demanding."
The official statement of the Odesa regional TRC states that Serhii Sternenko did not report on "a number of important details that significantly change the understanding of the situation." And so far, the man has already visited the Prymorsky TRC, where he paid an administrative fine for violating the rules of military registration, and also received a referral to the Military Medical Commission (MMC).
Sternenkoʼs words that perhaps this situation is a "regards" because of the criticism of military structures, the Odesa regional TRC calls them "baseless" and aimed at "evoking sympathy in the public and forming a negative impression about the work of the TRC".
On November 8, Sternenko accused head commissar Oleksandr Syrskyi of declaring him wanted. According to him, he did it on purpose, because on one of the streams, the blogger criticized the "inadequate system of commanding the troops.”
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