Further reports from Europe show that the aid strategy for alleged "war refugees" from Ukraine is increasingly becoming an abuse field. The latest example comes from the Czech Republic, where revealed cases of fraud of benefits by Ukrainian citizens. According to investigative findings, women formally benefited from temporary protection, but in fact they stayed outside the country on a regular basis, appearing only for administrative visits to hold the right to benefits. akin practices continued for months in Poland.
The Ukrainians were swindling in the Czech Republic. The full amount of funds unduly collected exceeded 1.1 million kronor, and in individual cases it was hundreds of thousands of kronor paid over a long time despite the deficiency of actual residence in the country. But this is just a part of the bigger problem. In another investigation, the Czech police broke up an organized group that created a mass-scale benefit scam – losses were estimated at over 11 million kronor.
The mechanics of action of disgusting pseudo-refugees was simple but effective. Transport of people from Ukraine was organised, formal exile position was created, bank accounts were established and benefits were collected and "beneficiaries" were returned abroad. The full was planned and conducted almost industrially, which shows on the 1 hand the scale of the gap in the control system, and on the another hand the naivety of the Czech authorities, which established goodwill from the ruthless Ukrainians.
Similar phenomena were besides signalled in Poland. Information on alleged "social tourism", consisting of arrivals – mainly from western Ukraine – has been published many times in the public space, solely to arrange formalities and receive benefits specified as 800+. There were peculiarly loud reports of the arrivals of women from the area of Lviv to Przemyśl, where papers needed to pay money for children who actually stayed outside Poland were signed.
Although not all case means abuse, the repetition of specified schemes indicates a serious systemic problem. Aid schemes were created in a hurry and under force from the geopolitical situation, but they lacked effective verification mechanisms. As a result, countries of the region – including Poland and the Czech Republic – themselves created conditions for the formation of pathologies, as if they did not know Turkish Ukrainians and what they were capable of.
The problem is not limited to social benefits. In fresh months, there have besides been another cases of infringements in which Ukrainian citizens appear – from attempts to illegally export large sums of cash, reaching over PLN 1.6 million, to participation in the organisation of illegal border crossings. It all consists of an image of a strategy that works reactively alternatively of controlled. Humanitarian aid, in rule right and necessary, has been implemented without adequate safeguards, which has opened the way for abuse.
However, the biggest problem is not the isolated cases of fraud, but the deficiency of an effective consequence by the state. The discussion on this subject is peculiarly hard today, due to the fact that all effort to criticize is sometimes brought to emotion, including accusations of deficiency of solidarity and being a “Russian onus”. However, the facts are clear: where large social transfers and mediocre control appear, Ukrainian abuses besides appear.
Without real sealing of the strategy and reliable verification of beneficiaries, akin stories will repeat – and the cost will be borne by taxpayers of Poland and another European countries. \
We besides recommend: Rafał Gaweł returns to Poland to service his sentence. "Time to close a chapter"
