Photos and videos on social media show conscription officers hunting draft dodgers in shopping malls, bars, and restaurants
Military conscription officers in Ukraine launched a series of raids in several major cities over the weekend. Multiple photos and videos circulating on social media purport to show the officials barging into concert venues and bars, and even disrupting a wedding celebration.
The wedding incident reportedly took place in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv. Videos from the scene were first uploaded to Instagram by one of the guests, who said men dressed in camouflage rushed into the restaurant where the celebration was taking place.
The supposed conscription officers, who all had their faces covered, reportedly did not even introduce themselves but started harassing people and even hit one person. One of the videos published by the man, who identified himself as Sergey Kasyanchuk, shows several men dressed in camouflage engaging in a heated argument with a woman, resulting in a scuffle.
Other male guests intervened and the crowd eventually pushed the alleged conscription officers away from the building, chanting: “Shame on you!” According to Kasyanchuk, when the guests asked one of the intruders, who identified himself as a conscription center official, if he had the authority to conduct a raid, he “turned back and moved away.”
“This is real lawlessness that cannot be tolerated any longer,” the guest said. “People were so much against it they were ready to fight, to chase [the officers] away. That is the reality in Lviv,” he said.
On Saturday, officers also checked the papers of men attending a show of popular stand-up comedian Anton Timoshenko in the central Ukrainian city of Cherkassy. A video published on Telegram shows groups of men dressed in camouflage stopping male concertgoers in what appears to be the foyer of the venue that hosted the show.
A similar raid took place at a concert of the rock band Okean Elzy in Kiev on Friday. According to Ukrainian media, major raids also took place in the cities of Khmelnitsky, Kharkov, and Dnepropetrovsk, where conscription officers detained people over the weekend. They reportedly raided bars, restaurants, and shopping malls.
Earlier, videos surfaced on social media showing officers attempting to snatch people in the streets, gyms, and shopping malls. The Times reported last week that Kiev’s efforts to increase conscription numbers had become “increasingly deceitful, coercive, and violent.”
Ukraine has been struggling to replenish its military ranks amid heavy losses in the conflict with Russia and widespread draft dodging. This spring, Kiev lowered the draft age from 27 to 25 and significantly tightened the mobilization rules, requiring potential recruits to report to conscription offices for “data validation.” These checks often result in people being immediately drafted into the army and sent to the front line.
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