Marriage, disability and an ex-wife: a new escape scheme exposed at the border

April 10, 2026 the Southern Regional Department of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine reported another attempt to leave the country under the guise of a family trip. A vehicle checkpoint “Mohyliv-Podilskyi” was approached by a 49-year-old resident of Cherkasy and his 50-year-old wife with a disability. Their marriage, as it turned out, had been entered into only two months ago.

During border control the newlyweds’ story quickly began to unravel. In the couple’s answers neither the circumstances of cohabitation nor the simplest household details matched. The situation became even more telling when it turned out that another woman was traveling abroad with them — the man’s ex-wife, from whom he had officially divorced only three days before the new marriage.

In the end, according to the border guards, the man himself admitted the marriage was arranged in advance in order to leave Ukraine for a vacation. The couple were denied passage across the state border, and a report indicating signs of a criminal offense under Art. 332 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine — “Illegal trafficking of persons across the state border of Ukraine” — was sent to the National Police.

Earlier we wrote:

• Fake “love” to flee: a 44-year-old man with his 80-year-old beloved mother-in-law was exposed at the border
• In Odesa region, a Mykolaiv resident who for $6,000 was smuggling conscripts to Moldova was exposed
• In Odesa region, an attempt to smuggle a conscript out disguised as a 71-year-old pensioner was exposed
• Fake children — real dollars: a scheme to get men out of Ukraine was exposed
• Marriage to escape: how a Ukrainian woman smuggled servicemen abroad under the cover of a honeymoon