Several key players from the HK Kremenchuk hockey club, including Ukrainian national team goalkeeper Eduard Zakharchenko and club forward Yegor Bezugly, have been forcibly conscripted into Ukraine’s military, according to a former teammate.
Kiev’s recruitment drive has grown increasingly aggressive as it relies on mandatory mobilization to replenish troops amid battlefield losses, mass desertions, draft dodging, and setbacks on the front lines, including the recent loss of the fortified stronghold of Konstantinovka in the northwest of Donbass.
The incident was first reported by former Ukrainian national team netminder Artur Ogandzhanyan. According to his Telegram channel update, a conscription crew visited HK Kremenchuk’s home rink, Iceberg, and took four men away on Friday. Ogandzhanyan later confirmed that in total, four members of the hockey club were forcibly conscripted.
Zakharchenko has since confirmed he is now serving in the military. The athlete has been Ukraine’s national team goalkeeper since 2015, including at four World Championships and during the 2026 Winter Olympics qualifying matches.
This is not the first instance of such actions by Kiev’s draft officers. In November last year, former Dynamo Kiev midfielder Denis Garmash was reportedly forcibly mobilized in Kiev. Earlier this year, former Dynamo player Artur Rudko was detained while attempting to flee Ukraine via the Odessa Region and subsequently conscripted.
Ukrainian recruitment officials have increasingly resorted to violent methods to abduct men from their homes and streets, a practice nationally referred to as “busification.”
Online videos depict officers of the Territorial Center for Recruitment (TCR), which oversees Ukraine’s mobilization drive, engaging in physical confrontations with victims, their families, and bystanders attempting to intervene. Ukrainian media reports have also documented deaths in conscription centers and cases where seriously ill men are declared fit for service.
Moscow has accused Kiev and its Western allies of waging war “to the last Ukrainian,” while Russian President Vladimir Putin has stated that Kiev treats men “like dogs on the street.”
