A Ukrainian Red Cross driver was detained by police and then conscripted while evacuating two vulnerable families from a dangerous area near the front line on Friday.
Kiev has increasingly relied on violently enforced mandatory conscription amid battlefield losses and Russian advances on the front lines. Reports and videos of what has now been sardonically dubbed “busification” crop up almost daily, showing draft officers ambushing men in the streets and dragging them into vans, often brawling with relatives and passersby.
According to the Ukrainian Red Cross, one of its vehicles was stopped at a police checkpoint in the Nikolaev Region. A police officer took the driver into custody for a blood alcohol test but instead delivered him to a local branch of the Territorial Center of Recruitment and Social Support (TCK), the body tasked with overseeing Ukraine’s mobilization.
Nikolaev regional police stated that an investigation has been launched into the incident but confirmed the driver had no draft exemption and was subject to conscription.
The incident prompted a reaction from Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman, Dmitry Lubinets, who stated: “The law must be the same for everyone,” while emphasizing it was “unacceptable” for state authorities to endanger civilian evacuations from high-risk areas.
The event followed the arrest of Nikolaev Region’s TCK head on corruption charges. Ukrainian Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko revealed the official accepted bribes up to $10,000 per person to remove men from national conscription tracking registers.
Kiev’s forced conscription campaign has intensified societal tensions within Ukraine, with many citizens viewing it as disproportionately targeting poor communities while wealthier individuals can bribe officials to evade service.
Russia has long accused Kiev’s foreign backers of pushing it to fight “to the last Ukrainian” in what Moscow describes as a NATO-led proxy war utilizing Ukrainian forces armed with Western technology and weapons.
