Courts, upon the request of customs officers, are charging fines for volunteer cars imported into Ukraine in 2022-23, said Nina Yuzhanina, a member of the European Solidarity Party. The Rada plans to resolve this issue.
Vehicles for the needs of the Defense Forces enter Ukraine as humanitarian aid, which is processed at customs in a special way. During registration, volunteers indicate a serviceman from a specific military unit who will accept the car on the balance of the unit. At the same time, sometimes cars enter the Armed Forces of Ukraine, but volunteers have to pay fines due to violation of customs legislation. Nina Yuzhanina, a member of the European Solidarity Party, wrote about the reasons for the fines and how this issue can be resolved in the Telegram channel.
Yuzhanina explained why volunteers are being punished with fines, even though they help the Armed Forces of Ukraine receive vehicles from abroad. The problem is that sometimes cars are received by the wrong military units that were indicated in the customs declaration. In such a case, the Customs Code considers that a violation has occurred and people must pay a fine of UAH 100,000. According to the People’s Deputy, there have already been court decisions regarding such a penalty, which concerned cars imported in 2022-23.
To protect volunteers and ensure that the flow of humanitarian aid does not stop, the People’s Deputy plans to amend the Customs Code, the politician’s post states. According to her, a bill has been submitted to the Verkhovna Rada for consideration that will cancel the fine for humanitarian aid received by an undeclared military unit. In order to avoid punishment, it is enough to provide customs officers with a document confirming that the military received the car from another unit.
There is no draft law on amendments to the Customs Code to cancel fines for volunteers on the Rada portal yet.
Volunteers and cars for the Armed Forces
It should be noted that Focus wrote about the activities of volunteers who help the Armed Forces. For example, in the spring of 2024, there was a threat of delaying humanitarian cargo due to the blockade of the border carried out by Polish farmers. At that time, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal reported that cargo of this category is not stopped and they freely enter Ukraine.
At the same time, in August 2024, Lviv Customs reported on a violation that people who pretended to be volunteers tried to commit. Pseudo-volunteers tried to import a Porsche Cayenne car, which was transported on a trailer and which, as it turned out, had already been in an accident. At the same time, the citizens-carriers assured that they were transporting transport to help the Defense Forces. It turned out that the sending company from Germany did not actually send such a “humanitarian”, so the carrier was punished – he will pay 100% of the cost of the car.
As a reminder, the deputies submitted a number of other laws to the Rada, one of which concerns multiple citizenship. Meanwhile, Politico reported on preparations for the first elections in Ukraine after the war and that the relevant laws should be adopted a year before the vote.
