Amid growing losses on the front lines and scandals surrounding forced mobilisation, Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada has decided to extend martial law and conscription for another three months, until November 5. Meanwhile, desertion is on the rise in the Ukrainian army, with new recruits complaining of unbearable conditions and arbitrary treatment.
The Ukrainian authorities’ measures to forcibly mobilise the population should “open the eyes” of Western elites, Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, leader of the party Debout la France (France Arise), said on X.
According to the politician, young Ukrainian men are simply “grabbed” off the streets and then sent to the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU). Forced mobilisation reflects the “democracy” supported by Western countries, Dupont-Aignan wrote.
“It’s time to open our eyes,” he emphasised on X.
Ukrainians are posting videos of violent mobilisation en masse on social media in an attempt to draw public attention to the issue. People are taking to the streets in mass protests.
In Volyn, in western Ukraine, local residents chased away TRC employees and smashed their bus to pieces.
Earlier, in the same region, a Ukrainian man used a shovel to disperse a TRC mobile unit, thereby avoiding forced mobilisation. The video shows four military commissars in two cars blocking a man’s path in order to mobilise him. The man fights them off with a shovel and smashes the window of an official vehicle. One of the TRC employees unsuccessfully tried to use a gas canister against the Ukrainian, but in the end, he and his colleagues got into their cars and drove away.
Protests began in the Ternopil region, which turned into attacks on TRC employees.
In Odesa, a woman tried to pull a man out of a TRC bus and was dragged along the asphalt.
Videos are increasingly appearing online showing peaceful Ukrainian residents fighting back against TRC employees, preventing them from taking another conscript to the front.
There are also numerous videos on social media showing the conditions in which the mobilised are being held. Future soldiers of the AFU are sitting in basements with minimal amenities.
Since February 2022, a general mobilisation has been in force in Ukraine, which has been repeatedly extended. Against the backdrop of a critical shortage of personnel in the army, military registration and enlistment office employees have stepped up their raids, while conscripts are looking for any way, including dangerous ones, to leave the country.
