In Ivano-Frankivsk region, border guards detained a programmer from Nova Digital who was planning to illegally leave Ukraine. We tell you the details.
In Ivano-Frankivsk region, border guards detained a programmer from Nova Digital who was planning to illegally leave Ukraine. We tell you the details.
On August 1, the Verkhovyna District Court of Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast considered in an open court session the administrative material received from the Border Guard Service Department regarding the administrative prosecution of a programmer-developer at Nova Digital who attempted to illegally cross the border.
According to the case materials, on May 3 of this year, at around 11:50 a.m., a man, as part of a group of people, attempted to illegally cross the state border outside the state border checkpoints.
The AIT member himself does not admit guilt in the charged offense, since he was in the Verkhovyna district exclusively for tourist purposes. From May 1 to 3, 2025, he and his friends stayed at the «Girska Rosa» hotel (Verkhniy Yaseniv village), which is confirmed by a reservation through Booking.com. In advance, on April 26, he purchased a ticket for the «Vorokhta Kyiv» train departing on May 3 at 3:03 p.m. In the morning of the same day, the guys went to the bus stop to get to the railway station. The bus did not arrive, so they waited and tried to stop passing transport. After two hours of waiting (i.e. around 11:00 a.m.), two police cars drove past them. One of them stopped at the bus stop and the policeman started a conversation with the boys to find out the purpose of their stay in the Verkhovyna district and checked their documents, after which he stepped aside with the boys' passports and called someone.
After that, the policeman returned, handed over the documents, and announced that in 20 minutes a bus would arrive to Vorokhta, from where the boys could go home. However, instead of the bus, an ordinary passenger car arrived. The boys were happy that they had finally caught a «passenger» and went to it themselves, but a border guard got out of it and began to say that the Verkhovyna district was a zone closed to tourists and staying there was only possible with the appropriate permit from the State Border Service. The border guard offered the boys to go with him to draw up a written warning, noting that they would cover half the way to Vorokhta, to which the boys agreed. However, they were actually invited to draw up a protocol on an administrative offense, which is fabricated, because there is all the evidence that the boys are ordinary tourists, not potential offenders. The expert’s defense attorney believes that the booked hotel room and the pre-purchased train ticket clearly indicate the tourist purpose of the visit, and not the intention to illegally cross the state border, as the State Border Service of Ukraine unfoundedly claims.
He notes that the administrative case materials do not contain proper and admissible evidence that could indicate that the IT worker and his friends were preparing to attempt to illegally cross the Ukrainian border outside the checkpoints. They contain only a formal instruction from a border guard inspector, based on conjecture, written explanations, and a video recording of the programmer’s alleged «confession» given under moral and psychological pressure.
He believes that the so-called «confession video» in which the developer provides his personal data and the purpose of his trip to the Carpathians was filmed under psychological pressure. Behind the camera lens, officials of the State Border Service were informed that «either you say that you intended to walk through the mountains to Romania or we are going to the Trade Center right now to sign a contract.»
The very fact that the IT worker was with his friends in the Verkhovyna district of Ivano-Frankivsk region, which is a controlled border area, at a distance of 15 km from the state border (which significantly exceeds the width of the border strip), according to the lawyer, is clearly not evidence that the developer intended to illegally cross the state border of Ukraine in any way as part of a group of people. The border guards also did not record the presence of weapons that would help in committing the offense, special clothing, equipment, a phone or a GPS navigator, and there was no international passport, which indicates the lack of preparation for illegal border crossing.
However, the court critically assesses the reference of the AIT citizen’s defense lawyer to the fact that the latter did not intend to illegally cross the border, but was on a tourist route, since this is not confirmed by any evidence. The printout from the Booking.com website attached to the petition only confirms the fact of the person’s booking of housing in the village of Verkhniy Yaseniv, but does not confirm beyond a doubt that the person actually lived there during this period as a tourist.
The attached screenshots from the gallery and the train ticket worth 145.13 hryvnias do not refute the initial incriminating written and oral testimonies of both the programmer himself and the persons identified with him. The defense also did not provide any evidence that would confirm that the programmer really has a stable and well-paid job in Ukraine.
It is evident from the case materials that the programmer signed all the documents without any comments, and did not indicate that he was in the place specified in the protocol specifically for tourist purposes. The case materials do not contain any evidence that during the preparation of the protocol on the administrative offense and the taking of explanations from the AIT employee, threats or any coercion were used by the border service employees, and such evidence was not provided by the person. The AIT employee did not make any comments or complaints. He also did not provide evidence of an appeal to law enforcement agencies regarding the pressure exerted on him by the border service employees.
Thus, the court found the programmer guilty of attempting to illegally cross the border and imposed a fine of UAH 8,500.
He must also pay a court fee of UAH 605.60 to the state.
The resolution may be appealed within ten days from the date of its issuance to the Ivano-Frankivsk Court of Appeal by filing an appeal through the Verkhovyna District Court of Ivano-Frankivsk Region.
