Men simply snatched off the streets, as mobilization in Ukraine becomes more ruthless + video

Hardly a day goes by without some new footage showing the increasingly brutal mobilization in Ukraine. Abducting men from the streets has become commonplace, but there is a growing number of people who stopped being passive in the face of the authorities' encroachments, and decided to take action.

A Ukrainian artilleryman fires a 152 mm towed gun-howitzer D-20 at Russian positions on the front line near Bakhmut, eastern Ukraine, on July 20, 2023, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (Photo by Genya SAVILOV / AFP) Fotó: AFP/Genya SAVILOV

Rounding up military age men from the streets continued even after President Zelensky announced that he would launch an investigation into corruption and brutality at recruitment centers. As expected, everything goes on as before.

Forced conscription in Ukraine

For example, a post on the opposition Rezident Telegram channel says:

Colleagues, at the moment 50 per cent of all mobilizations are carried out using the rough bundling method. There are hardly any men in the streets, only disabled men or the new rich who had the money to buy a certificate that they are unfit for military service. Nothing has changed with the dismissal of Borysov [former head of the Odessa Regional Territorial Recruitment Center embroiled in scandals]. No one checked forged certificates there or in other parts of the country.

In Lviv, a man of military age was taken in the street  in broad daylight again.  He stood no chance against the uniformed men outnumbering him. As the video shows, he was simply loaded into a minibus.

The recruitment officers do not idle for a minute. They roam the cities in droves, gathering their victims. 

It is public knowledge that as long as they do their job well and gather enough men, they will suffer no harm and will certainly not have to go to the front.

When picking up men in the streets, they like to use vehicles with foreign registration received as gifts from their Western partners. The vehicle in the video below, for example is a Belgian minibus.

When it comes to man hunting, the officers no longer bother about methods. In Chernivtsi, for example, a recruitment officer hunting from an open minibus was filmed.

In many places, however, they have grown tired of the excesses  uniformed men commit. As a result, clashes between soldiers and civilians have become more frequent. In a video recorded in western Ukraine, residents of a village simply blocked the soldiers' minibus and refused to allow local men to be taken to the front.

Resistance from civilians is growing in Ukraine. Footage recording an incident in Dnepropetrovsk shows as a police officer and a soldier tried to check the ID of a man resting on a riverbank. In no time, the document check turned into a scuffle: the police officer was thrown into the river and a beer bottle was hurled at the soldier.

Cover photo: Ukrainian soldier near Bakhmut (Photo: Genya SAVILOV / AFP)