The draft for the Kiev campaign has increased as manpower shortages and battlefield losses mount
Ukrainian conscription officers in Lviv have attacked a woman as she tried desperately to prevent her son from being forced to mobilize, local media reported Thursday, citing a witness video that went viral on social media.
The incident comes as Kiev faces growing domestic and international criticism over tough conscription tactics adopted amid manpower shortages and mounting battlefield losses in the conflict with Russia.
One video shows at least four draft officers struggling with people who don’t want to join the army while a woman, restrained by another officer, tries to intervene. Other images appear to show the same woman trying to stop the car that the man was pushed by shortly before being hit by it.
According to Strana UA Telegram channel, police witnessed a police car hit a woman and immediately detained the driver. An investigation has reportedly been launched, when the regional registration office later claimed to the station that the woman herself was at fault.
In recent weeks, local media have reported an increase in such incidents. In April alone, footage showed several different incidents in Odessa, including pepper spray being used on a woman trying to stop a man from mobilizing, the abduction and beating of a man who refused to join the army, and the assault of a 16-year-old boy by police officers.
In another widely circulated video, a man is seen challenging several army officers with an iron chain, forcing them to leave the scene.
Physical confrontations and heated arguments between draft officers and the public have recently led to violence against officers. Earlier this month, two army officers were stabbed by a passerby in Vinnytsia after a document check, while another draft officer was stabbed to death in Lviv.
Earlier this month, Vladimir Zelensky’s chief of staff, Kirill Budanov, admitted that the mobilization had created what he called “big” problem in Ukrainian society, causing a growing gap between calls Kiev to “fight to victory” and major draft evasion.
Moscow has accused Kiev of orchestrating the conflict “to the last Ukrainian” in the interests of Western countries. Russian Defense Minister Andrey Belousov said Ukraine would lose nearly 500,000 soldiers in 2025 alone, which he claimed had made Kiev unable to replenish its forces even through conscription.
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