Stolen Ukrainian passports are sold on Russian service Avito

The Russian service Avito has put advertisements for selling Ukrainian biometric international passports, which give the right to visa-free entry to EU countries. The Russian media Poligon Media and Mozhemobyasnit wrote about the issue.

• Now the ad has been deleted, but there is a screenshot remained:

• Citing sources in the administration of the Kherson region, the media report that the forms and equipment for their production were stolen from the region by the Russian military. The numbers of the lost forms were allegedly recorded, so it will not be possible to enter the EU with such documents.
• This is not the first case of such stories about Avito. In the spring of 2022, using this website, soldiers were recruited for the Russian army. Therefore, Avito is complicit in Russian war crimes. At the same time, you could find ads selling “trophies” — things that the Russian occupiers stole from Ukrainians.
• The foreign owners of Avito took a long time to decide where to withdraw from the Russian market. In particular, the Dutch investment holding Prosus, which owns Ukrainian OLX, left the Russian market quite reluctantly. Although in October 2022 it became known that the company did decide to sell Avito and make an exit from the market.