It followed shortly after two incidents<\/strong><\/a> of alleged brutality that trained a spotlight on recruitment methods that continue to cause concern more than a year after a controversial mobilization<\/strong><\/a> law was adopted in the spring of 2024.<\/p>\n In Kyiv, a court ordered house arrest for two police officers suspected of exceeding their authority in the beating<\/strong><\/a> of a man outside a district recruitment center. Grainy, bluish security-camera footage from October 17 shows two officers repeatedly kicking and hitting a man who lies prone in the open door of a police van.<\/p>\n Two days earlier, police in the Ternopil region in western Ukraine detained seven military personnel suspected of several crimes, including torture and extortion, in connection with the alleged mistreatment of several men, some of whom were not potential recruits but fellow soldiers who were undergoing rehabilitation after being wounded in the war.<\/p>\n This form of mobilization is known as \u201cbusification\u201d because men who are accosted by conscription officers or soldiers from units seeking conscripts and cannot prove they are exempt from service are sometimes bundled into buses and taken in for induction into the military.<\/p>\n One alleged victim in Ternopil told police he was assaulted outside a recruitment center by attackers who forced him into a van, drove him away, beat him, threatened him with a weapon, and demanded 50,000 hrynyas ($1,190) for his release. Authorities said the suspects stole a car from another Ternopil resident, which was later found near Kyiv.<\/p>\n ‘Cynically Indifferent’ Police<\/strong><\/p>\n Sopin\u2019s mother, Larysa Sopina, shares the lawyer\u2019s doubt about the official claim that her son \u201clost consciousness and fell,\u201d she told RFE\/RL, saying that it did not seem to fit with the finding of blunt force trauma.<\/p>\n Sopina is frustrated about her treatment by the authorities, who she suggested have consistently stonewalled her efforts to find out what happened to Roman.<\/p>\n Larysa Sopina<\/p>\n “No one has contacted me at all. I have the feeling that the police are completely cynically indifferent,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Protas said that when he first went to the Podil police precinct, he was told that the cause of the alleged fall \u201cmust be epilepsy,\u201d but that Sopin had no history of epilepsy.<\/p>\n \u201cFrom the beginning, the police were trying to cover up the case,\u201d he said. Kyiv police and military authorities deny a cover-up or any other wrongdoing.<\/p>\n Violence is one of several problems plaguing Ukraine\u2019s campaign to mobilize more men to fight against Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion, which will reach the four-year mark on February 24, 2026.<\/p>\n President Volodymyr Zelenskyy\u2019s government barred men aged up to 60 from leaving the country after the start of the invasion in February 2022, though in August it relaxed the rules for those aged 18-22. Kyiv has resisted pressure to lower the draft age to 18 but decreased it from 27 to 25 last year.<\/p>\n Absence without leave, desertion, and flight from Ukraine also pose serious challenges<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n Authorities opened more than 110,000 AWOL investigations in the first months of 2025, according to Prosecutor-General\u2019s Office figures reported by Ukrayinska Pravda — more than half the total number since the start of the invasion. More than 50,000 desertion cases have also been opened since February 2022.<\/p>\n Russia has its own mobilization problems.<\/p>\n![\"Larysa](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/ac936e15-9b8a-4794-9581-08ddfa9b85de_cx16_cy3_cw65_w250_r1_s.jpg\"\/)
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