{"id":327585,"date":"2025-08-08T10:06:14","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T10:06:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/327585\/"},"modified":"2025-08-08T10:06:14","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T10:06:14","slug":"ukraines-conscription-crisis-alleged-abuse-leads-to-protests-emigration-russia-ukraine-war-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/327585\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine\u2019s conscription crisis: Alleged abuse leads to protests, emigration | Russia-Ukraine war News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Names marked with an asterisk* have been changed to protect identities.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kyiv, Ukraine \u2013<\/strong> Artem* is determined to never join Ukraine\u2019s armed forces.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I ever fight, I won\u2019t fight for Ukraine,\u201d the 29-year-old from the westernmost Zakarpattia region told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

A \u201cconscription patrol<\/a>\u201d of three police and two military officers rounded him up in late June as he was leaving the Sunday mass at a cathedral in Uzhhorod, the regional capital.<\/p>\n

Artem had paperwork proving that he was the only caretaker of his disabled, ailing 66-year-old mother and therefore could not be drafted.<\/p>\n

But the patrol detained and brought him to a conscription office, where two officers took Artem to a separate room. He claimed they beat him and tried to force him to \u201cvolunteer\u201d for military service.<\/p>\n

When he refused, he said they tied and blindfolded him and four more reluctant detainees and took them to a forest outside Uzhhorod.<\/p>\n

One of the officers ordered them at gunpoint to run to what turned out to be a fence on the Slovakian border, Artem claimed.<\/p>\n

Another officer videotaped the men\u2019s \u201cattempt to illegally cross the border\u201d, which is punishable by up to four years in jail, and said they could \u201cnegotiate their release fee\u201d, Artem claimed.<\/p>\n

He said that his family paid $2,000 for his release and another $15,000 for a fake permit to leave Ukraine as men of fighting age, 25 to 60, are not allowed to travel abroad.<\/p>\n

Artem, who spoke via a messaging app from an Eastern European nation, asked to withhold his real name, personal details and the location of the conscription office he claims to have been beaten in.<\/p>\n

A deepening crisis<\/p>\n

Al Jazeera was unable to independently verify all of the details of Artem\u2019s story, but some of his allegations corroborate with other cases of conscription-related coercion and corruption in Ukraine amid a dire shortage of front-line troops in the fight against Russia.<\/p>\n

Between January and June, the Ukrainian Human Rights Ombudsman\u2019s office received more than 2,000 complaints about the use of force by conscription patrols that consist of military and police officers.<\/p>\n

In one case, patrol officers hit a bicyclist in the central Rivne region with their car in January after he refused to pull over. They beat and tear-gassed him to deliver him to the conscription office and \u201cillegally mobilise\u201d, investigators said. Ultimately, the patrolling officers volunteered to go to the front line to avoid assault charges, they said.<\/p>\n

On August 1, police in the central city of Vinnytsia used tear gas to disperse a crowd that tried to storm a conscription office and release some 100 men that they claimed had been detained illegally.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, a privileged few abuse their position to dodge the draft.<\/p>\n

In October 2024, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy dismissed the prosecutor general after several public prosecutors obtained fake disability papers that also entitled them to sizeable \u201cpensions\u201d.<\/p>\n

In January, Oleh Druz \u2013 the chief psychiatrist for Ukraine\u2019s armed forces, who could declare any conscript unfit for service \u2013 was arrested. He now faces up to 10 years in jail for \u201cillegal enrichment\u201d.<\/p>\n

Since Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in 2022, Druz reportedly bought several luxurious apartments, two plots of land and several BMW cars \u2013 and kept $152,000 and 34,000 euros ($40,000) in cash at home.<\/p>\n

For more than two years, conscription patrols have been combing public places, subway stations, nightclubs and even crashing wedding parties in search of men of fighting age \u2013 25 to 60, more than a dozen witnesses from all over Ukraine told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

They tour regions outside their official jurisdiction. \u201cFake patrols\u201d of burly uniformed men then blackmail those they catch. A release fee is $400 or more, but those who refuse to pay up are handed over to real conscription offices, the witnesses say.<\/p>\n

Several conscription officers are ex-servicemen who often suffer from PTSD, despise draft dodgers and have no qualms about humiliating, abusing and beating them, they say.<\/p>\n

Hundreds of thousands of men are understood to be in hiding, causing a dire shortage in the workforce. Across the country, there are far fewer male construction workers, farmhands, cooks and taxi drivers.<\/p>\n

Men whose military papers are in order prefer to move around with a witness who can, if needed, videotape an encounter with a conscription patrol.<\/p>\n

\u201cI drive around with my mom because there are too many checkpoints anywhere I go,\u201d Ferentz, an ethnic Hungarian taxi driver in Uzhhorod, told Al Jazeera as his mother smiled from the front seat of his old Skoda.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, a societal division is growing.<\/p>\n

Current or former Ukrainian servicemen and their families are increasingly indignant about how draft dodgers justify their reluctance to enlist.<\/p>\n

\u201cI broke up with many female friends who defend their husbands\u2019 or boyfriends\u2019 right not to fight,\u201d Hanna Kovaleva, whose husband Albert volunteered in 2022, told Al Jazeera. \u201cThis [mindset] is disgusting \u2013 \u2018let someone else die while I\u2019m hiding behind my wife\u2019s skirt.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Preemptive emigration<\/p>\n

Before he turns 17, Bogdan* is leaving Ukraine \u2013 but not in search of better living conditions.<\/p>\n

He lives in central Kyiv in a three-bedroom apartment with his parents, goes to a private school and spends weekends in a spacious country house.<\/p>\n

But his parents do not want him to be conscripted.<\/p>\n

Even though it could only happen only when Bogdan turns 25, they say they are not taking ay risks.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith this chaos on the front line, you don\u2019t just want your kid to die because of his officer\u2019s mistake,\u201d his father Dmitry* told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

On September 1, Bogdan will start school in Prague, where his aunt lives.<\/p>\n

Crushed and heartbroken \u2013 he just started dating a classmate \u2013 he says he has no choice.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know I sound very unpatriotic, but I don\u2019t want to end up rotting in a ditch,\u201d he told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

In January, United States President Donald Trump\u2019s administration urged Kyiv to lower the draft age from 25 to 18 \u2013 reiterating the previous administration\u2019s request.<\/p>\n

As the average age of a Ukrainian serviceman has reached 45 from 42 three years ago, more and more Ukrainians with military backgrounds agree with the request.<\/p>\n

Alternatively, men aged 18 and older could serve in a \u201clabour army\u201d that manufactures drones and other war-related items, according to Lieutenant General Ihor Romanenko, ex-deputy head of the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.<\/p>\n

He said that mobilisation should involve all men of fighting age without exceptions \u2013 while Ukraine\u2019s economy should be \u201creformatted\u201d to primarily serve the army\u2019s needs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf unpopular strategic decisions at home are not implemented, the situation only gets worse. No foreigners will fight for us,\u201d Romanenko told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Names marked with an asterisk* have been changed to protect identities. Kyiv, Ukraine \u2013 Artem* is determined to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":327586,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7655],"tags":[299,2597,12,332,7661,657],"class_list":{"0":"post-327585","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-russia","8":"tag-europe","9":"tag-military","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-russia","12":"tag-russia-ukraine-war","13":"tag-ukraine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114992590727722219","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327585\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}