May mobilization report
Tortured priests, mobilized schizophrenics, militant NGOs, resistance, stabbings, shootings, beatings.
Back to the war, and the flow of human bodies it demands. It’s not as fun reading as the intrigues of Ukraine’s kosher nostra. But as Zelensky’s own best friends say in recently released taped conversations, their enrichment and survival depends on the continuation of military action. And it certainly is continuing.
Onward!
In some countries, government accuse critics of trying to drag the country into a war. In Ukraine, it’s the oppose — critics are accused of trying to pull the country out of the war.
For instance, pro-Zelensky media is claiming that the corruption probe against Zelensky’s closest allies is a ‘‘Trump-Putin special operation to force Ukraine’s capitulation’. Ie, to accept the peace deal.
The quoted statement is from the facebook of the personal sorceress of Zelensky’s chief of staff Andrey Yermak. Veronika ‘Feng-Shui’ is her business name, her real name being Veronika Anikevich.
There has been plenty of amusing information about this 51-year old mage in the past week’s court case against Yermak. She figured in Yermak’s contacts as ‘soothsayer’, and he apparently regularly consulted her on personnel decisions and other matters. Yermak, by the way, walked free yesterday, his friends having paid off his ~$4 million USD bail.
The idea that the anti-corruption organs are working on Washington, let alone Moscow, is an incredibly self-serving narrative. In reality, the anti-corruption organs were initially created and funded by the Democratic Party, the Open Society Foundation, and the EU — their personnel and fan group hate Trump and Putin more than anyone.
And even if there was an esoteric peace plan behind the anti-corruption probe as Mrs Feng-Shui claims, it isn’t working. Zelensky remains committed to continuing the goal indefinitely, or at least until the return of Democrats to the White House could allow a new major counter-offensive.
And Zelensky’s supposed ‘enemies’ in the camp of liberal ‘anti-corruption activists’ are even more committed to this goal.
Take, for instance, Darya Kaleniuk of the western-funded Anti-Corruption Action Centre (AntAC). Kaleniuk and her fellow AntAC director Vitaliy Shabunin never shut up about the corrupt affairs of the Zelensky regime. At times, their shrillness can even make one someone sympathetic to said regime.
But their criticism is proportional to their militarism. Like other members of the ‘NGO nobility’, they are never getting mobilized any time soon. On May 17, Kaleniuk visited the frontlines of the London front. She reported to Facebook that the war is going very well indeed, and must be continued:
Kaleniuk came up with 5 key points from the fabulous conference she’d just attended. It’s hard to say whether one should laugh or cry reading them.
Many Russians apparently die, which is wonderful, and Kaleniuk sees no need to think about how many Ukrainians perish. The next winter will be ‘brutal’, which is why it’s necessary to keep hitting Russia with long-range drones. Zelensky’s corruption is only bad insofar as it prevents us from hitting Russia more often. Otherwise, it’s vital to implement the EU’s Kachka-Kos reforms, whereby Kaleniuk and her friends will be given more positions ‘monitoring’ the flow of western money to Ukraine. How exciting. And, of course, if Zelensky and his friends are corrupt, it’s because they are Russian agents.
130–150 dead ‘good Russians’ is the price of capturing 1 square kilometer of Ukraine. If this continues, the Russians will not be able to win on the battlefield.
The next winter will be brutal. The enemy will strike critical energy infrastructure. Right now, the task is to survive the coming winter. Prepare yourselves and your loved ones for a situation where there may be no heating or electricity. I do not have much hope in the government.
We can seize the initiative in the war by increasing long-range strike capabilities and implementing the best sanctions in the world against the Russian Federation — strikes on their oil refining industry and other targets deep inside enemy territory. The failed missile program does not help with this. The focus of the entire state apparatus and defense industry must be on creating long-range missiles. Greetings here to Fire Point and their Flamingos, which fly but don’t hit the target.
Money. We need money for weapons and to keep the economy functioning. Therefore, we must implement the entire Kachka–Kos reform plan. And continue working to take the Russians’ €200 billion in frozen funds held in Euroclear.
Corruption. The Russians will continue using their agents, such as the Derkach network, to destroy us from within. Strategic corruption is rotting our state. Excellent grassroots initiatives fail to scale up. Politicians and state officials who crave easy money become addicted to the drug of corruption. Therefore, we must continue cleansing our state from within. Reform of the Prosecutor General’s Office and the State Bureau of Investigation is critically necessary. That is what we will continue working on.
These are my conclusions from a closed conference outside London, from which I am now returning.
Kaleniuk’s colleagues in the world of EU-funded anti-corruption warriors agree. Yury Gudymenko, who instead of dodging Russian drones is in charge of the minister of defense’s anti-corruption council, stated on May 1 that those hiding from the army in the gym would be relentlessly hunted down by the Territorial Recruitment Centres (TRC):
I’m tired of living in one world and, within the same ten minutes, seeing gyms packed with bodybuilders that are obviously reserved by someone. And at the same time seeing videos where there’s outrage that the TRC exceeded its authority. There is such a task, and we are working on that task
Indeed, raids on gyms have been strangely absent in recent months. In 2024, I covered a famous case in which a gym trainer protesting against TRC raids on his establishment was beaten, mobilized, and publicly raped by patriotic soldiers at the frontlines. He disappeared since then and probably died.
Of course, it is likely that gyms escape mobilization of their patrons by paying the TRC, whose ‘R’ stands for Racketeering as much as Recruitment.
As I wrote here, the constant exposes of corruption in the TRC by the western-funded press have the aim of increasing mobilization by removing the possibility of paying one’s way out. They worry that up to 2.1 billion euros in bribes to the TRC circulate annually.
And now we can return to true causes of the corruption probe against Zelensky’s friends. I have argued that if there is any geopolitical underbelly to the attack on the president’s entourage, it is to make sure that he continues the war and intensifies mobilization — he got his 90 billion euros from the EU, and now he needs to fulfill his end of the bargain.
This is also an opinion shared by the Ukrainian commentator Dmytro Snegirev. This is what he told an interviewer on Ukrainian television on May 18:
“At the summit in Yerevan, Zelensky met with Starmer, Macron, and others. The European partners made it clear: we are giving you the means to fight Russia, but you must solve the question of who will do the fighting. Notice that after this, the political operatives of the President’s Office started pushing the line: lower the mobilization age to 18. A coincidence? An accident? No.”
Zelensky is clearly fulfilling his side of the bargain. Questioned on May 15 by the Ukrainian parliament, head of Kiev’s TRC Valery Kravchenko stated that the number of mobilization officers in the capital has increased by ‘40%’ over the last 3-4 months.
In the same interview, Kravchenko denied responsibility for a late 2025 death in the Kiev TRC, and stated that the law gives the TRC the right to forcibly enter the homes of draft-evaders.
Will the mobilization age really be pushed down from 25, as the aforementioned Snegirev believes? I wrote in early May about another wave of calls from public ‘military’ figures to do so.
On May 16, the Lviv TRC officially announced that all boys born in 2009 must enter their details to the draft authorities online or in person by July 31, 2026.
The TRC are certainly fiending to go after the youth. On May 18, a 24 year old man who went to the local TRC to clarify his draft data was detained, despite the fact that only those older than 25 can be mobilized. The problem was that his birthday was the following day — he was kept overnight and mobilized once it was legal to do so.
Youth or not, more men will certainly be taken. Top figures in Zelensky’s party urge on the intensification of mobilization. MP Fedienko complained on May 10 that so many Ukrainians are hiding from the mobilization officers. To deal with this, he urged freezing the bank accounts of all draft dodgers.
Victims
Untold thousands die monthly at the frontlines. But even before they get there, many are killed at the hands of the mobilizers — the Territorial Recruitment Centres (TRC). Sometimes it’s because they refuse to cooperate. Sometimes it’s to extort money. Often, both.
On May 1, TRC officers beat a man in the Volhyn oblast. Not only did they crack his head open, which is nothing new, but they forcibly entered his home to capture him. This rarely happens, and is certainly an escalation of mobilization practices.
After photos and videos of the incident went viral, the local TRC gave their version of events:
On May 1, during the draft notification of citizens, three individuals attempted to avoid communication with the notification group and tried to flee. Subsequently, they actively resisted the lawful actions of police officers and TRC personnel, as a result of which servicemen were injured and an official vehicle was damaged.
The identities of all participants in the incident are being established by law enforcement agencies. None of the citizens presented military registration documents, thereby violating the requirements of current Ukrainian legislation.
We also report that one of the persons liable for military service sustained bodily injuries due to his own negligence. Servicemen of the TRC ensured his escort to a medical facility to provide the necessary assistance. We note that no physical force was applied to this citizen by the servicemen of the TRC, and the citizen has no complaints regarding the actions of the TRC servicemen.”
The last part of the statement thereby seems to shift the blame onto the police.
On May 10, a Dnipro man ended up in a coma after time in the TRC. The video and explanation was posted by Dmytro Lubinets, Ukraine’s rather ineffective human rights ombudsman. The injured man is currently in critical condition with serious brain trauma. According to his wife, he was beaten by men in balaclavas, which is increasingly standard for the hated TRC.
On May 12, a woman in Dnipro wrote to social media about how she watched her husband forcibly mobilized before her. The man soon died. The TRC officially responded, claiming that the man ‘suddenly felt bad during his medical exam’ and died despite 45 minutes of aid from medical professionals. This is what the widow wrote:
“My husband, Fyodor Viktorovich Koshelnyak, was seized on 05.06.26 by 10 TRC mercenaries at approximately 8:45, when we were walking to the parking area located above the Tunnelna ravine in the city of Dnipro. People in camouflage ran out of the bushes without identifying themselves or asking for documents, surrounded him, and attacked him. I saw how a crowd of 10 people surrounded him, using brutal force during the detention. I tried to stop them, but they threw me to the ground. They all grabbed him together; he fell, and then they forcibly shoved him into a bus that had driven out from the bushes, grabbing him by the arms and legs.
When I went around the vehicle to record (photograph) the bus’s license plate, one of them tried to take my phone away, saying that this was a criminal offense — even though what they themselves did should be criminally punishable. Another bus drove up from the road. These beasts are not human. They immediately took him to the VLK [military medical commission], and by 10:48 he was already dead. He died because of them and because of the negligence of the doctors. Nobody informed me about it, and they ignored my requests to let me in. These beasts must be punished, along with those who failed to provide timely assistance.
This happened at Panikakhy 19. These beasts will be punished — I will do everything in my power.
Who gives these orders and hires mercenaries so they can seize people with impunity and throw them into vehicles like garbage?”
On May 3, mobilization officers beat a 17 year old in the Rivne oblast with a metal crowbar. The victim states that he was riding a motorcycle with a friend when they were stopped by TRC officers. They weren’t pleased to find out he was a minor, and began beating him while his friend escaped.
At the hospital, the 17 year old was diagnosed with a head injury and multiple contusions. The local police put out a statement denying his claims, which is unsurprising given their cooperation with the TRC.
Resistance
On May 2, there was a large fight between TRC officers and a group of construction workers in the Volhyn oblast, which is in northwestern Ukraine. The workers won.
On May 2, a woman punched through the glass window of a TRC minivan in Krivoy Rog, Zelensky’s hometown. The full, 5 minute video can be viewed here.
On May 4, a video appeared showing TRC officers refuse pleads from a crowd in Krivoy Rog. They were asking the TRC to temporarily release a newly mobilized man so that he could visit the funeral of his mother. He was her only son.
On May 5, Odessan woman broke the glass of a TRC minivan and deployed pepper spray against its drivers. Usually it’s the TRC using this tool. Her actions allowed the mobilized men inside to escape. In its official post on the matter, the Odessan TRC speculated that the attack had been planned in advance. They complained that three mobilized men escaped.
On May 5, civilians attacked a TRC minivan with rubbish bins. The video was quite impressive.
The Odessan TRC is trying to instill fear into overly helpful civilians. On May 6, video appeared of the TRC pepper spraying an influential local businessman, Valery Tverdovsky, who had tried to save a man from being mobilized.
On May 5, a man escaped the TRC in Vynnytsia by climbing up a wall.
On May 7, the TRC beat a woman in Ternopil who was trying to save her husband. In an official post on the matter, the TRC confirmed the incident, stating that both she and a TRC officer had been hospitalized.
Odessan women were more successful that same day. Blocking a TRC minivan from moving, they managed to free a man inside.
There are many Roma in western Ukraine. As one might imagine, they don’t take well to the forced mobilization of fellow clansmen.
On May 10, a large group of Roma stormed the local TRC building in Zakarpattya. Local journalist Vitaliy Glagola reported that the TRC fired guns in the air to scare them off, at least once using a Kalashnikov.
The Zakarpattya TRC confirmed that a large group of people had tried to storm their building. ‘The threat was contained and the attack was repelled.’
Perhaps a counter-offensive against fortified Roma positions will take place soon.
On May 14, a woman’s attempt to save her husband failed — the TRC officer deployed pepper spray.
On May 15, there was a standoff between a large crowd of Odessites, mainly women, and a group of policemen and TRC. The draft officers tried to capture a man, but were surrounded by 30 civilians, who ended up breaking the window of the car. 20 more policemen came, who ended up beating one girl and arresting the man who broke the car window.
On May 19, women in Lviv broke through the glass of a TRC minivan, allowing those captured to escape.
Abductions
The TRC are taking precautions. On May 2, a video appeared showing 6 TRC minivans emerging to mobilize one man.
On May 4, an actor of the Odessan Oblast Theatre Academy, Vadym Anokhin, shared his mobilization experience. Captured by the TRC, they beat him, verbally abused him, and broke his finger. They refused to take him to hospital, and only managed to get medical help from a policeman that drove by. He published photographs of his medical certificate online.
That same day, six TRC officers pushed a man into their minibus in Kharkov.
On May 8, policemen in Kiev beat a man in his car with batons while mobilizing him. He complains of being pepper sprayed, and cries out:
What did I ever do to you to deserve being sent off to war, where I’ll be fucking killed?
On May 8, locals in Dnipro threw rocks at the TRC. In response, the TRC used pepper spray.
On May 10, an Odessan taxi driver was abducted by TRC officers in balaclavas. The taxi was left abandoned on the road. Eyewitnesses claim the TRC first filled the car with pepper spray, a common tactic.
On May 12, an Odessan was forcibly mobilized while showing them documents proving he is exempt from the draft.
On May 13, the TRC dragged a man out of a bus in Kiev. And into their minibus.
That same day in capital, a man was pushed into a car by a TRC-policeman group. He successfully prevented being fully shoved in through splaying his limbs. The cop, however, took no heed, and drove down the highway with legs poking out of the car.
Meanwhile in Odessa, a man resisting mobilization was kicked on camera by a group of TRC officers.
Fathers and Sons
On May 9, an elderly Odessite told local media how the TRC had abducted his disabled son and brutally kicked him. As a result, he has a fractured knee. When he came to the TRC to ask about his son, he was pepper sprayed.
On May 12, Ukrainian MP Georgy Mazurashu, a dissenting member of Zelensky’s parliamentary fraction, posted footage of a war veteran coming to the Khmelnitsky TRC with a large bat. The father had come to retrieve his disabled son, who the TRC had mobilized and beaten into unconsciousness.
On May 15, MP Yury Kamelchuk told television reporters that the TRC had killed a father of five children. The body was apparently arranged in such a way as to suggest suicide. He says no one was charged. The army responded, stating it would not investigate the death unless evidence is provided.
Now we’ll take a look at the recent spate of mobilized schizophrenics and priests. There was also an interesting conflict recently between the TRC and Ukraine’s Aryan warrior-chiefs in Azov.
Mobilizing the madhouse
On May 4, commanders complained to the western-funded publication Hromadske about the excessive number of unhealthy men mobilized to the army:
“It has become the norm that, roughly speaking, out of ten people sent to us, three are only partially fit for service, two are drug addicts, and another two have gone AWOL… It’s a catastrophe. Here’s a recent example: a ‘new arrival’ came on February 12, but he has never even been to the training ground. He’s already being hospitalized for the third time because of lung problems,” says Roman Kovalev, commander of a rifle battalion.
“The people sent by the TRC are a walking disaster. The quality is terrible. Motivation is zero. About 70% are only partially fit for service, yet they get shoved into brigades. Then the brigade can’t do anything with them. They’re forced to ‘handle’ them while these men sit in hospitals and collect pay. Some have deformed fingers, hypertension, schizophrenia; one had a stoma and a colostomy bag. I had no idea what to do with them because they had absolutely nothing to do with UAV operations,” says Dmitry Kostyurov, commander of the drone systems battalion of the 29th Separate Heavy Mechanized Brigade.
