In Ukraine, forcible military recruitment efforts escalate into violence

What the report says

Al Jazeera reports that Ukraine’s wartime military recruitment campaign has become increasingly coercive and contested, with street detentions, alleged abuses and a growing number of violent incidents. The piece centers on the experience of Anton, a 52-year-old Kyiv resident who says he was seized by police and taken through a clinic and recruitment centre before later being released after his medical status was reviewed. He says he believed his HIV, arthritis and eyesight problems made him unfit for service. The article uses the term “busification” for the practice of grabbing men in public and taking them to mobilisation sites.

The report says recruitment pressure intensified after mobilisation rules changed in 2024, when Ukraine lowered the draft age to 25, raised fines for evasion and removed a proposed end date for some soldiers’ service. It also describes allegations of corruption in the draft system, including fake disability certificates and cases involving officials accused of abusing exemption processes. A number of men who were interviewed or cited in the article said the system had become opaque and punitive.

Al Jazeera also says resistance has grown more confrontational, with attacks on enlistment officers and recruitment offices recorded across the country. It cites several deadly or damaging incidents in 2025 and 2026, and notes that public trust in recruitment officers has fallen. The article adds that international rights monitors have raised concerns about beatings, detention and the conscription of men with disabilities, underscoring the wider strain the mobilisation drive is placing on Ukrainian society during the war with Russia.