Recruiters have confiscated passports, taken people from their jobs and, in at least one case, tried to send a mentally disabled person to military training, according to lawyers, activists and Ukrainian men who have been subject to coercive tactics.
Videos of soldiers shoving people into cars and holding men against their will in recruiting centers are surfacing with increasing frequency on social media and in local news reports.
The harsh tactics are being aimed not just at draft dodgers but at men who would ordinarily be exempt from service — a sign of the steep challenges Ukraine’s military faces maintaining troop levels in a war with high casualties, and against a much larger enemy.
“The military feel their impunity,” said Tetiana Fefchak, a lawyer who is the head of a public organization that represents men in conscription cases near the city of Chernivtsi, in western Ukraine.
“My husband was leaving the night shift in the morning, the recruiting center team blocked his way and he was taken by force to go through the medical commission,” read one message to a Kyiv-based lawyer, viewed by The Times.
Serhii Bolhov, who was drafted last winter, was killed in combat in July in southern Ukraine and recently buried in Oshykhliby, a village of around 2,000 people a dozen miles from Chernivtsi.
The original article contains 1,718 words, the summary contains 218 words. Saved 87%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Recruiters have confiscated passports, taken people from their jobs and, in at least one case, tried to send a mentally disabled person to military training, according to lawyers, activists and Ukrainian men who have been subject to coercive tactics.
Videos of soldiers shoving people into cars and holding men against their will in recruiting centers are surfacing with increasing frequency on social media and in local news reports.
The harsh tactics are being aimed not just at draft dodgers but at men who would ordinarily be exempt from service — a sign of the steep challenges Ukraine’s military faces maintaining troop levels in a war with high casualties, and against a much larger enemy.
“The military feel their impunity,” said Tetiana Fefchak, a lawyer who is the head of a public organization that represents men in conscription cases near the city of Chernivtsi, in western Ukraine.
“My husband was leaving the night shift in the morning, the recruiting center team blocked his way and he was taken by force to go through the medical commission,” read one message to a Kyiv-based lawyer, viewed by The Times.
Serhii Bolhov, who was drafted last winter, was killed in combat in July in southern Ukraine and recently buried in Oshykhliby, a village of around 2,000 people a dozen miles from Chernivtsi.
The original article contains 1,718 words, the summary contains 218 words. Saved 87%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!