Four Israelis arrested for cannabis possession on pilgrimage route to Uman
Ukrainian police arrested four Israelis for cannabis possession at a checkpoint near Vinnytsia, on the road to the Rosh Hashanah pilgrimage in Uman, in September 2023. Israel's consul and Foreign Ministry took up the case, and Ukraine had set up checkpoints after reports of extensive drug use among pilgrims.
Four Israelis were arrested for cannabis possession at a Ukrainian police
checkpoint on the road to Uman.[1]Ukraine police held the four at the border
crossing near the city of Vinnytsia, about an hour and a half from Uman,
according to Israel’s Foreign Ministry.[2]One of the four was travelling with
his eight-year-old son, who stayed in police custody with his father, Channel 12
reported.[3]The four were in Ukraine for the annual Jewish pilgrimage to
Uman, where thousands of mainly ultra-Orthodox Jews gather ahead of Rosh
Hashanah in a city described as one of the birthplaces of the Hasidic movement.[3]
The arrests came as Ukrainian police set up checkpoints on the roads to Uman and
at the grave complex of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, after reports of extensive
drug use at the Rosh Hashanah celebrations.[1]That year’s celebrations were
to take place under tightened security because of the Russian war on Ukraine.[3]Israel’s consul and the Foreign Affairs Ministry were handling the cases,
according to Israeli media.[1]Cannabis remained illegal in Ukraine at the
time, although the country had taken steps to legalise its medical use, while
Israel had decriminalised possession of small amounts.[3]
Case data
Every number and detail the sources state, with the sources that state it.
No quantity or form of the cannabis was reported for any of the four arrests.
The exact charge, the legal basis and whether the four were charged or released were not reported.
One of the four was travelling with his eight-year-old son, who remained in custody with him; the child's status is otherwise not described.
The Times of Israel describes a crossing outside Vinnytsia near the Moldovan border; the exact crossing point is not named.
Ynet's brief dispatch describes drug possession without naming cannabis; the cannabis identification rests on The Jerusalem Post's account.
Three other Israelis were separately detained near Vinnytsia after a car crash that killed a woman; that case involves no cannabis and is not covered in this report.
Police in Kyiv detained a 38-year-old man carrying 21 postal parcels with 100 grams of amphetamine, then found about 2.5 kilograms of prohibited substances in his flat, including cannabis and cookies with cannabis extract. He was notified of suspicion under part 3 of article 307 and a court ordered him held without bail.
Police in Kirovohrad Oblast searched the home of a 31-year-old man in Novoukrainskyi Raion and seized 500 grams of cannabis he was keeping for sale. He was detained and notified of suspicion under part 2 of article 307 of Ukraine's Criminal Code, which carries 6 to 10 years in prison.
Police detained three people, one a serving soldier, accused of growing cannabis in a greenhouse in Lviv Oblast, processing it and selling it in Lviv and the region, and said they seized about 15 kilograms worth some 4.5 million hryvnia on the black market. All three were notified of suspicion under Article 307 of the Criminal Code.
Police in Kyiv's Holosiivskyi district detained a 41-year-old woman they saw burying drug packages in a park and seized about 230 packages of drugs, including cannabis, alpha-PVP, MDMA, mephedrone and amphetamine. A court ordered her held without bail on suspicion of selling an especially dangerous psychotropic in especially large amounts, a charge carrying up to 12 years in prison.
