A full-scale « conscript hunt » in towns and villages

Volodymyr Zelensky enacted several laws that considerably tightened the conditions for mobilization. One lowers the minimum age for soldiers sent to the front from 27 to 25. Another abolishes a whole series of medical exemptions and creates a database to combat draft dodgers. Other bills are due to be voted on by the Rada (Parliament) at the end of April. Meanwhile, according to the Associated Press (April 4), « the new laws (…) could add around 50,000 soldiers to the army« , i.e., « one tenth of the 500,000 additional soldiers Mr. Zelensky said he wanted to mobilize in December« . These considerable objectives speak volumes about the level of human losses in the Ukrainian army.

Even before these laws were enacted, the TTsKs (military recruitment centers) deployed their recruiting sergeants in all public places, in search of men of fighting age. In the town of Rivne (in north-western Ukraine), a Ukrainian activist said in early March: « The situation I’m about to describe to you I know first-hand, not from social networks. It’s a real ‘conscript hunt’ taking place in Rivne, as in the whole of Ukraine. The reason is simple: TTsK employees have targets to meet, issued by the territorial centers, and

so on. If the objectives are not met, the TTsK staff may be sent to the fighting units. That’s why it’s so hectic: nobody wants to end up in Bakhmout (one of the towns where the fighting is intense editor’s note). But since the beginning of 2024, there have been numerous cases of armed resistance against the recruiting sergeants. For example, in January, a peasant from Rovno, in defense of his brother whom the TTsK wanted to take on board, attacked the officers with a scythe. He was thrown into prison and his brother left to fight in the Donetsk region. Even more significant: in the village of Radyvilov, having located two TTsK recruiters via social networks, a group of locals managed to immobilize them, confiscated their weapons and took them to the village of Nemyrivka, where they beat them severely. The assailants and the weapons are still being sought. These are not isolated cases, in the region as elsewhere. General mobilization is provoking active resistance in society. This is all the more significant as this radical opposition began in the western regions*. »

With our correspondents

* Regions where nationalist sentiments are traditionally stronger than in the East.