Mobilization war sharpens
Beatings, killings, stabbings, explosions, gas canisters, crowbars.
The war continues, and it calls for fresh human material. The British press recently put out an article positing that Ukraine must mobilize another 250,000 men. This will apparently allow it to win. Considering the fact that Ukraine mobilized at least that many men in 2025, it is unclear why the ‘senior NATO source’ the Times consults is so confident mobilizing another 250,000 will change things.
Whence are these men to come? Ukraine’s army is a forcibly mobilized mass, with soldiers paid under $500 USD a month. As head of the army Oleksandr Syrsky stated on February 7, 90% of the army are conscripts, not volunteers.
The favored mobilization method is to grab men off the street and shove them into a minibus. This has earned the popular epithet of ‘busification’, a term that the Ukrainian government has tended to officially consider a Russian psychological operation.
Until late January 2026. President Zelensky announced that he had commanded the new minister of defense to ‘solve the busification problem’. Quite a turnaround on his previous rhetoric.
Incidents
Earlier in 2026, the American liberal press was up in arms about ICE impunity towards US citizens. But they forgot about a rather obvious precedent.
A country where armed men in balaclavas drag people off the street, kicking and screaming, into minibuses, with those kidnapped sometimes turning up dead in holding centers. Where well-meaning bystanders, often women, heroically do battle with the kidnappers at real risk to their lives. Where the state-employed kidnappers display all their heroism by tripping over in the snow while dragging their victims, feet first.
A country whose kidnapping campaign has been encouraged, propagandized and financed by benevolent western liberal elites.
Let’s take a look at the ever-simmering war between Ukraine’s Territorial Recruitment Centres (TRC) and the civilian population. I spent the greater part of the last two days collating all the incidents I could find from the past two months. Immerse yourself in the world of Ukraine.
The liberal press once loved to crow on about how they ‘stand with the Ukrainian people’. I can only concur, but as long as one agrees that ‘the people’ are those being dragged into a mobilization minivan.
December 19. Social media users claim that TRC officers have been turning off the energy for apartments of draft dodgers in order to force them outside, where they can be mobilized.
December 23. TRC and police officers beat journalist Oleksy Brovchenko and his wife in the village of Spasskoe, Dnepropetrovsk oblast. Brovchenko was then kidnapped from his home. The police came because Brovchenko had called them to report that the TRC had beat him up that morning. But when the police arrived at his residence, it turned out that they brought the TRC along with them, and they beat Brovchenko again after entering his residence. MP Artem Dmytruk, currently living in the UK, wrote that locals believe the TRC was taking revenge on Brovchenko for his coverage of local corruption.
December 23. A TRC officers in Odessa breaks open a man’s car window with a gun and fills the car with tear gas. The man is kidnapped.
December 24. Locals break the rib of a TRC officer with a crowbar in the Rivne region. The TRC officers and a police car had tried to stop a car, at which point passersby grabbed the officers by their clothes, swore at them, threw sticks, and attacked with a crowbar. The police have pressed charges.
December 25. TRC officers spray a woman and her child with pepper spray in the Rivne area.
December 25. The Rivne TRC officially comments on the pepper spray incident:
"The intervention of civilian women, especially with underage children, in any situations that may pose a danger to children is, at the very least, irresponsible! We consider such behavior cynical, irresponsible, and morally unacceptable, since the use of children’s presence in conflicts with representatives of state authorities endangers the children themselves and undermines the legal culture of citizens. It is especially cynical to use children as a shield from the law. This is not an expression of maternal instinct, but a conscious attempt to avoid responsibility, which violates not only the law but also the moral order,"
December 26, Dnipro. A man who blocked a TRC minibus with his car is shot at, with local media claiming he was killed. The Dnipro police officially states that the man had wounded two TRC officers with a knife, after which they fired their weapons in the air.
December 26, Kirovograd oblast. A man dies in hospital after a car accident involving TRC officers. The police and TRC claim the man, who was driving on an electric scooter, crashed into a wall. Relatives claim that the wall received no damage, but that the deceased on his scooter was hit by the police car at high speed. The deceased, Oleksandr Chvalko, leaves behind him a wife and two children.
December 27, Poltava regional TRC holding centre. Video is released of a detained draftee suffering from an epileptic fit. The draft officers try to hold him upright, but end up leaving him lying on the floor.
December 27, Belgorod-Dneprovsky TRC. Social media users write that on December 25, at around 11 AM, a man was beaten to death by TRC officers. His telephone is used to call the man’s son, who recognizes the body but is told that his father died of a ‘weak heart’. The Odessa oblast TRC denies that he was beaten, writing that he ‘suddenly lost consciousness’, and died despite attempts at providing medical assistance.
The lawyer representing the family of the deceased then shared this photo. Social media users pointed out that it did not appear his death was caused by ‘heart issues’:
December 28, Odessa. Passersby save a man from busification.
December 29, the suburb of Nyvky, Kiev. Busification. Those taking the video say that the TRC officers used pepper spray and tasers against a woman who had tried to save the man from mobilization.
December 29, Odessa. A TRC officers shoots in the air to scare off civilians from trying to save a mobilized man.
December 29. The Odessa oblast TRC announced the arrest of a man suspected of stabbing one of their officers two months ago. He was detained while hiding in a supermarket.
December 30, Zakarpattya. The Security Services of Ukraine (SBU) conduct a large scale raid on TRC officers, including the head of the oblast TRC Andriy Savchuk. Savchuk was accused of a local pro-war volunteer of threatening her after news emerged that her diabetic husband and father of three children had died at a training base. The SBU found close to $100,000 USD in undeclared cash at Savchuk’s residence.
December 30, Dnipro. Mayor Filatov states at a press conference that a waste crisis has developed due to the massive number of draft-dodgers. They have been ordering food to their house in order to avoid going outside and throwing the rubbish out of their windows.
December 31, Krivoy Rog. Women try to block the movement of a TRC vehicle. A TRC officer clears the road and beats one of the resisting women.
December 31, Kharkiv. A man shoots in the direction of TRC officers while driving his car. No one was harmed, and the police announced the detainment of the shooter.
December 31, Khmelnitsky. A man tries to escape the TRC, but a crowd of draft officers jump on him before he can enter a building.
January 2. The financial declaration of Bohdan Shevchenko, former driver for the Kirovograd oblast TRC, reveals his possession of 220,000 hryvnia worth of gold bars and 300,000 hryvnia in cash. In the course of his time at the TRC he also purchased a plot of land for 146 thousand hryvnia. He resigned from the TRC in 2025.
January 2, Lviv. Civilians attack a TRC bus, apparently forcing them to release a mobilized man.
January 2, Odessa. Two men attack a TRC vehicle and shoot in the face of another TRC driver using a gas pistol.
January 2, Kyiv. A TRC officer pushes a pregnant woman during a confrontation with a crowd of civilians.
January 3, Vynnytsia oblast. Police announce that a 46 year old man had attacked a TRC officer the previous day during ‘the mobilization process’. He had apparently been wounded in the leg with a sharp object. The man was detained and his fearsome weapon seized.
January 5, Lviv. A representative of the Lviv TRC tells Deutsche Welle journalists about the struggles they face:
"Now in Western Ukraine, in cities where there is no war, the main enemies for people are the TRC and the police. And it's so upsetting to hear this,"
To his dismay, he told journalists that relatives of mobilized men often call him an ‘enemy’. He also spoke of the danger his colleagues face:
"People are so afraid of mobilization that they are ready to kill a TRC employee,"
The Deutsche Welle journalists went on patrol with the TRC to cover the situation directly. While checking documents, one draftable man ran away. The TRC did not try to chase him due to the presence of a western journalist.
January 6. According to the ministry of defense, there have been 272 attacks by civilians on TRC officers since the start of the war, resulting in 4 deaths. No one has been convicted in these four cases, but 205 criminal cases have been opened for attacks on TRC officers.
January 6, Zhitomyr oblast, Pyliny village. New emerged that a man died after being detained by the TRC. Detained on January 2, his nose began bleeding on January 3 due to issues with his arteries. That day he received a summons to the frontlines. Later that day he was found unconscious in the TRC building, after which he died.
January 6, Kiev. TRC officers try to mobilize a man, but fall over in heavy snow when confronted by a civilian woman.
January 7, Dnipro. Seven TRC officers drag a man through the snow by his feet. He is then shoved into a minibus.
January 7, Odessa. TRC officers confront a crowd of civilians. This apparently resulted because a draftable man was hidden from the TRC officers in their car, leading the press gang to try to drag him out.
January 8, Rivne. TRC officers pepper spray a 15 year old girl. She and her grandmother were trying to prevent the TRC officers from entering their house to detain their father. The Rivne TRC made an official promise to investigate the case.
January 8, Ivano-Frankivsk oblast. The State Bureau of Investigations (SBI) detains a TRC employee after reports that he and the TRC leadership had been systematically beating and torturing conscripts. In one reported case, a man was beaten because he had refused to undergo a fluorography examination. He was stripped, beaten, taken to the x-ray room, and pepper sprayed. As a result, surgery was necessary to remove a damaged organ.
January 8, Mykolaiv oblast. The SBI announced that it has received more than 30 complaints from local residents about beatings at the oblast TRC. One officer was charged.
January 9, Ternopil. A TRC officers shares videos of himself mobilizing a man. He threatens to beat the detainee and calls him a ‘fuckwad’. In another video, he spits at civilians who save a man from being mobilized and tells them to ‘get fucked’. When a civilian asks him why he isn’t fighting, he fires back with the same question.
On January 16, local media claimed that this individual, Vadym Dyachuk, had been forced to pay a fine of 34 thousand hryvnia and sent to the frontlines. Dyachuk calls himself a sportsman on social media. Previously, he served in the police while simultaneously receiving a pension for disability.
January 10. New chief of staff Kirillo Budanov promises to deal with the problem of corruption in the mobilization process.
January 11, Lviv. A TRC officer throws a screaming woman to the ground as she tries to save her boyfriend.
January 11. The publication strana.ua releases testimony of corruption in the mobilization process:
Kyiv resident Yurii, who was recently “mobilized” straight off the street on his way to work, told us how newcomers are literally “put on the price list” from the very start.
“I had a deferment until the end of 2025. And literally as soon as it expired, a couple of days later I was ‘busified’ right outside a supermarket where I stopped for coffee on my way to work. It feels like ‘candidates’ like me, with expiring exemptions, are tracked separately. I didn’t resist or act rude, and the draft officers treated me fine: they immediately hinted at the option to ‘stand up and leave.’ But the rate is astronomical — $15,000, which had to be brought immediately. Apparently, prices have recently gone up, because I’d heard different figures from acquaintances: getting out of the van and going home used to cost $5,000, and once you’d been taken to the TCC — $10,000.
I simply don’t have $15,000, and there was no way I could quickly raise that sum, which I honestly told them.
But interestingly, they immediately hinted that ‘there are other opportunities to arrange yourself well, cheaper ones, and with time to spare.’ They asked if I was willing, and I said yes.
After that, I was ‘assigned’ to a rather unexpected place. They brought me to an ordinary business center — offices, people constantly coming and going to work. Separate premises were set aside for the mobilized. Everything was civilized: a toilet, a shower, a kitchen area, decent sleeping quarters, a ‘recreation room’ with books. They asked me to hand over my phone, but I had two, so I surrendered one and kept the other, and no one noticed. So I could freely text my relatives. The electricity in our ‘business-class TRC’ has never been cut off. And later, when heating disappeared in half of Kyiv, it didn’t affect us either. The food is excellent. I can see my wife every other day, though briefly.
In short, as my wife jokes, I’ve got a better better than everyone, while they sit in old apartment blocks without electricity, water, or heating.
Right after my ‘assignment’ to this location, they began offering me ‘options.’ They said that as of now I am attached to a brigade holding positions on the front line in the Zaporizhzhia region. But it’s still possible to ‘avoid’ that.
The sums vary. For example, for $7,000 you can get into the Presidential Regiment. That’s the top option: the salary would be no less than 50,000 hryvnias, plus service in Kyiv in an IT unit on a 5/2 schedule and sleeping at home. If I agree to this option, I wouldn’t even have to go to basic training.
Another option is $5,000. That’s also in Kyiv, but through training first, with duty shifts, and the salary would be lower — around 30,000 hryvnias or even less.
For $3,000–4,000 they can find options in rear regions, but with barracks accommodation.
I’m still thinking. At first I was fired up about the Presidential Regiment, but then the guys here said that over time they might transfer you to the front, and how long I would stay in Kyiv for $7,000 is unclear. So I’m leaning more toward the ‘$5,000 package’ — service in Kyiv (it seems to be one of the Territorial Defense units, though I’m not sure yet).
As far as I’ve been able to find out, almost all the mobilized men who were ‘assigned’ with me at the business-class center are ‘paid.’ So it turns out that if a person immediately says he is ready to pay, he is put on a ‘separate program’ with decent conditions and treatment,” Yurii stated.
January 12, Lutsk. Relatives reported that a military pensioner was mobilized and pepper sprayed. The sick old man was dragged into a TRC minibus while he and his family were repairing the battery of their car in front of their home. The TRC was shown all his documents proving his deferment from military service as a father of many children, but he was still taken away. Later, an ambulance took him to hospital.
January 13, Odessa oblast. Two law enforcement officers were charged for interfering with the mobilization process. They face 8 years in jail. They are accused of creating a WhatsApp group that warned locals where TRC officers and blockposts were.
January 14, Lviv. A policewoman kicks a cleaning woman after the cleaner objected to the presence of TRC officers. The police and TRC were forced to leave after the cleaner brandished a shovel.
January 14, Lviv. The local TRC reports that a man stabbed a draft officer in the stomach and then hid on a bus, where he was detained. This incident involved a 46 year old man and took place on January 11 during the mobilization process. The man had been uncovered as a draft dodger, and is now facing 5 to 12 years in jail for his attack.
January 14. Lviv police launch a special operation to detain a man who shot at a TRC minivan. Large traffic jams develop.
January 15, Odessa oblast. The TRC complains to Facebook that a man threatened one of their colleagues with a screwdriver while his documents were being checked. The threatening man then escaped by jumping into a car driving past, with the driver of said car already detained and charged with interfering with the army.
January 15, Ivano-Frankivsk oblast. The State Bureau of Investigations (SBI) announced that it has charged a number of TRC officers. They apparently offered to transport a 44 year old man to the border with Romania for $8000 USD. Driven there in a TRC vehicle, he was to be given the opportunity to escape Ukraine and swim across the river Prut in a thermal costume. The SBI believes that more than 10 men took advantage of this opportunity in September 2025 alone.
January 15, Odessa. Women try to stop TRC officers and unknown individuals assisting them from busifying a man. video
January 16, Odessa. The Security Services of Ukraine (SBU) detain a number of individuals involved in the above video.
These include officers of the Khadzhibei regional TSK and their ‘volunteer’ assistants from the ‘Units for the Assistance of Law Enforcement Organs’ (PSPO). I have covered mafia-style assassinations related to the lucrative business of the PSPO in Odessa before. In 2025, the well-known mafia leader Magomed Aidamirov was identified in a video showing aggressive PSPO representatives. Media reports that those arrested on the 16th are accused of extorting the mobilized of large sums of money. They apparently demanded $6000 USD from mobilized men in exchange for freedom.
January 18, Odessa. TRC officers try to mobilize a pensioner. He had apparently made the mistake of waving at the TRC as they drove by. He was eventually released.
January 18, Ternopil. The TRC announces that one of their officers was fined 34 thousand hryvnia (under $1000 USD) and sent to the frontlines after beating a mobilized man. Unfortunately for him, the video of his abuses went viral. This probably refers to the aforementioned Vadym Dyachuk.
January 21, Dnipro. Video appears showing an unconscious woman lying on the ground amidst a crowd of TRC officers and their minivan. Nearby civilians wipe their eyes, indicating that the TRC had just attacked them with pepper spray.
January 21, Dnipro. Another video appears showing a different conflict between civilians and the TRC. The latter fired pistols and used pepper spray.
January 21, Chernovtsy. Video emerges showing the TRC dragging a man into their bus, but he is saved by local residents.
January 21, Ternopil oblast. Drunk men on a quadbike without number plates beat up a soldier. The soldier, Mykola Dukhanov, was visiting his family during a brief break from service. He was beaten after the quadbike crashed into his vehicle and he exited to inspect the damages.
When the police came, they only interrogated Mr Dukhanov, allowing the quad bike to circle around. A sober colleague offered Dukhanov money in exchange for silence, but he refused. Then a senior TRC officer arrived, who informed Dukhanov that he had no right to leave his military unit. This is how Dukhanov’s wife Tatyana described the scene:
He showed up to ask: ‘Where the fuck is your paperwork? How did you leave the unit like a slave and go beyond the garrison limits? What are you doing driving around here and interfering with respectable people riding their quad bikes? I’ll call the Military Law Enforcement Service and report everything.’ He kept nitpicking whether Kolya was even a combat officer, since he was heading to a unit in western Ukraine. Essentially, he stood there looking for a way to put pressure on a serviceman who volunteered to serve back in 2015
January 21, Lviv. The oblast TRC makes an official statement reminding youth who are turning 17 this year that they must give the army their details by the 31st of July.
January 22, Kyiv. The first deputy head of one of the city’s regional state administrations was detained by the SBU. He is accused of organizing a scheme through which the mobilized had to pay $15,000 to $20,000 USD. In exchange, they were allowed to fictitiously serve in military units, after which they received fake medical documents giving them deferment from service. He did this through his connections in the regional TRC.
January 24, Lviv oblast. Footage emerges of a man shooting at TRC officers. He was apparently detained, and there are no reports of injuries.
January 24, Volhyn oblast. Video appears of a TRC officer asleep at the wheel. Ex-MP Vitaly Kupry speculates that the officer was under the influence of narcotics.
January 25, Rivne TRC building. MP Oleksiy Honcharenko publishes a video of a man being beaten by men in military uniform.
January 26, Poltava. TRC officers break through the toilet door of a gas station to mobilize a man hiding from them. A cleaning lady and cashier tried to stop them, to no avail.
January 26. A new game appears on the App Store and Google Play — ‘Escaping the TRC’. Players can build underground tunnels, avoid security guards, improve their skills and instruments, trade objects with other detainees, and make decisions on how to escape the TRC holding centre. The developers call it a strategy game.
January 26. The Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) officially deny claims that they have been sending mobilized men with downs syndrome and autism to fight on the Zaporizhzhia battlefield. This was in response to a viral video published by a soldier complaining that his unit had been sent 20 men by the TRC, among whom were 11 drug addicts, four men with autism, and 5 men over 60 years of age. The AFU acknowledged that this video was published by a real Ukrainian commander fighting in the Zaporizhzhia area, but denied his claims and blamed them on ‘ the troubled psychological state of our defenders, who have to fight for extended periods of time without any rest’.
January 27, Lviv train station. Photos emerge of TRC officers kicking a man in the head. Social media users write that the beaten man, born in 2002, was a military veteran who had with him documents proving his status. The TRC confronted him, ignored his documents, after which the man threw something into their car. In response, the TRC officers jumped out, chasing him down, beating him, and attacking him with pepper spray. The TRC officers then left the scene.
January 28, Vynnytsia. TRC officers fight with a civilian. The TRC officially claims that a man had refused to show his documents and hit the draft officers first.
January 29, Khmelnitsky oblast, the town of Shepetovka. A TRC officer throws away a man’s phone as he tries to film his conduct. The oblast TRC claims this was an act of self defense.
January 29. Denis Yaroslavsky, commander of a military reconnaissance unit, tells television viewers that it is time to mobilize the 100,000 draft-age foreign men living and working in Ukraine as temporary or permanent residents. According to Yaroslavsky, a number of MPs support him, and the idea is being ‘processed’ by the General Staff. ‘If half of them leave, that’s fine’.
January 29, Uman. A man stabbed a TRC officer in the neck. The oblast TRC claims that the attacker approached a group of TRC on his own. The TRC officer is in stable condition in hospital, and the attacker was immediately apprehended.
January 29, Lviv. A 23 year old man tells social media how he was beaten by the TRC on January 16. Once they found out that he was 23, which is under the mobilization age of 25, he was thrown out of the TRC minivan.
January 31. To demonstrate his own irrelevance, MP Oleksandr Fedienko called members of the TRC who forcibly mobilized men on the street ‘idiots’. Fedienko is a member of the ruling party and of the parliamentary security committee.
February 1, Lviv. A young man jumps out of a TRC minivan while it is driving, after which he is chased. It is unknown if he managed to escape.
February 1, Zhytomyr oblast. A TRC officer shoots his weapon while in a conflict with civilians. The TRC officially blames the ‘aggressive and dangerous actions’ of the civilians, which apparently forced the TRC officer to unload his firearm in the ground. The video clearly shows the TRC officer shooting his gun in the direction of the civilians.
February 1, Vynnytsia. Local police state that an unknown man opened fire on a group of TRC officers. None were wounded, and the shooter is being searched for.
February 2, Kiev. A video shows an empty Tesla on a highway with its windows open. Locals claim that a man had been mobilized and dragged out of the car three days ago.
February 2, Krivoy Rog. A drunk TRC officer fatally crashes his vehicle into a tree.
February 2, Kiev oblast. The State Bureau of Investigations (SBI) announces that the head of a local TRC had extorted eight trucks from locals. He told them they were needed for the frontlines, but military units never received them.
February 2. The SBI announces the detainment of two lawyers and a military officer. They took $2500 from those wishing to escape the TRC holding centres, and $3000 USD for those wishing to escape a military training camp.
February 3. Head of the military medic group ‘Ulf’ Alina Mikhailova tells television reporters that of the 30,000 men mobilized monthly, 20,000 desert. This leaves only 10,000 ‘cross-eyed and bow-legged’ men who don’t have the strength to jump the fence and escape. Previously, Mrs Mikhailova told reporters that men with schizophrenia and brain tumors are often mobilized into the army. She predicts that things will get ‘even worse’.
February 3, Cherkassy. A TRC van is shown on video crashing into a civilian vehicle. Following this successful ramming operation, a classic of the trade, the driver is mobilized.
February 3. Head of the national police Vygovsky complains that cooperation with the TRC is damaging the image of the police. According to Vygovsky, the number of incidents of resistance against the TRC officers has been rising due to ‘the lack of desire among most people to enter the army’. He also noted the prevalence of corruption in the TRC, leading to ‘minimum levels of trust in society towards the TRC’. He reminded the TRC that they are not legally allowed to mobilize anyone directly, since this is something that only the police are authorized to do. The TRC are meant to merely check people’s documents. In reality, of course, there are countless videos showing the TRC personally mobilizing men.
February 3, Dnipro. TRC officers in military camouflage and an unknown man in civilian attire drag a man into a minivan. Attempts by passersby to intervene fail.
February 3, Kyiv oblast. The SBI apprehends a senior TRC officer for beating mobilized men, kicking them on camera.
February 4. The police announces it has uncovered a scheme whereby TRC officers took $40,000 USD from the mobilized. In exchange, they drove them to the border with the EU, allowing them to escape. They also offered to drive men anywhere in Ukraine for only $16,000 USD. The money was sent to a cryptocurrency wallet. Seven men have been arrested.
February 4, Kyiv. These two videos show separate cases of forced mobilization in the capital, one in Troeshchina, one in Obolon. Both are poor areas of the city.
February 4, Krivoy Rog. Civilians break the glass of a TRC minivan where a mobilized man was being kept.
February 5, Dnipro. TRC officers attack a man in the face with pepper spray.
February 5, Lviv. A woman is arrested after opening fire on a minivan with police and TRC officers. She had intervened after watching a man be forcibly mobilized.
February 5, Odessa. TRC officers kick a man lying on the ground. The oblast TRC later stated that this was an act of self-defense, and claimed the video had been edited.
February 6, Odessa. A TRC officer was wounded with a knife while conducting mobilization activities. The official TRC Facebook page stated this had occurred on February 4, with the attacker also using pepper spray. He seems to have managed to escape.
February 6, Ismail, Odessa oblast. A man is forcibly mobilized.
The mobilized man later stated on video that the TRC had rammed into him while he was riding his bicycle (a classic tactic). They then handcuffed him, after which three TRC officers beat him. He was then shoved into a minivan. As he is a father of three children, he was eventually released. The man states that one of the TRC ‘goblins’ jumped on his bicycle, and that they did not even check his documents while apprehending him.
February 7, Rivne. Two civilian cars block a TRC minivan, allowing several men to escape. The local TRC claims that the ‘attack’ led to one of the TRC officers suffering injuries.
February 7, Khmelnitsky. A TRC officer hits a woman, after which she tears off his body camera and throws it away.
February 7, Lviv. A video shows seven TRC officers breaking into an apartment at 5:30 AM. A man is kidnapped. His hand was broken, and relatives claim he was not given medical assistance.
February 7, Dnepropetrovsk oblast. Police announce that three TRC officers have been detained after beating a 55 year old man to death.
February 8, Kharkiv. A man attacks TRC officers with a knife after they demand to see his documents. The local TRC states that the attacker was detained, and a TRC officer was wounded in the head and body.
February 8, Kharkov. The TRC kidnap a man along with a woman.
February 9, Odessa. Women enter a conflict with TRC officers after a mobilized man loses consciousness.
February 9, Dnipro. More details emerge about Oleg, the 55 year old man beaten to death by the TRC two days ago. Relatives say he was apprehended while walking his dog.
February 9, Odessa. TRC officers beat a man on the street, attacking him with pepper spray.
February 9, Odessa. A TRC officer is sentenced to 7 years in prison for robbing a pensioner. The TRC officer, a recidivist who had already done time behind bars for robbery, narcotics and murder, claimed in his defense that the victim of his latest crime had pro-Russian views and criticized the valiant officers of the TRC.
February 9, Dnipro. TRC officers beat a man and attack him with pepper spray in the corridor of an apartment block.
February 9. In another display of public humiliation, human rights ombudsman and MP Dmytro Lubinets tells parliament about the TRC’s abuses as if it matters. He highlighted the fact that the TRC do not have the right to detain and arrest people, which is the sole prerogative of the police. He noted cases of the TRC robbing victims of a range of items, including their mobile phones.
According to Lubinets, the number of complains concerning the TRC doubled compared to the previous year. In 2022 his office received 18 such complaints. In 2023 — 514, in 2024 — 3312, and in 2025 — 6127.
Lubinetsk spoke of a number of other violations. In the Kharkiv oblast, the TRC broke the leg of a lawyer. In Volhyn, the human rights ombudsman’s representatives were illegally detained for an hour by the TRC. As a result of their time at TRC holding centres, a number of soldiers have spinal problems that prevent them from even putting on a bulletproof vest. He also discussed cases of deaths:
“Unfortunately, we have cases where citizens of Ukraine are subjected to physical violence resulting in their deaths. We have documented cases. The most recent case was in Dnipro. Before that, there was a case that I am personally overseeing — a young man was detained by TRC employees and said he was being taken to the TRC. The next day, neither his family nor his lawyer could gain access to him. Instead, the family received a call from the hospital; a trepanation of the skull had been performed. The person died. This incident occurred in Kyiv,”
February 10, Cherkassy. A man was detained after throwing a grenade at a group of TRC and police officers who wanted to check his documents.
February 11, Dnipro. Information emerged that the 55 year old man killed, Oleg Lesin, had three children. If they were all under 18, this would have given him exemption from mobilization. On February 26, the official cause of his death was revealed by the special prosecutor’s office — edema, swelling of the brain, fracture of the skull bones, head injury.
February 11, Odessa. Local man takes on a mob of TRC officers, pushing two out of three to the ground. The man was able to escape, though his coat was pulled off him.
February 11, Odessa. The TRC kidnapped a man with his dog, beating the former in the head with a pistol.
The victim’s mother told the media that he was kicked while handcuffed because he had refused to sign the necessary documents. This resulted in serious loss of blood, requiring him to undergo surgery at hospital. After this was done, the TRC returned to take him away, but the police and doctors prevented them from doing so. To prevent the man from running away, his dog was taken. Later, the TRC officially stated that the man had damaged his own head after ‘displaying unprovoked aggression’.
February 12, Poltava. Videos prove that TRC officers have begun turning off electricity for apartments with draft dodgers, luring them into the open so as to detain them.
February 12, Odessa. Police detain a TRC officer for extortion. He apparently demanded 9 thousand hryvnia (a few hundred USD) in order to remove men from the lift of draft evaders. He also took $6,000 in exchange for a position at a workplace classified as ‘critical infrastructure’, giving its employees exemption from military service.
February 13, Cherkassy. TRC officers drag a man out of a car, attacking with pepper spray. In another video, TRC officers push a man to the ground and shoot with a starting pistol.
February 13. Influential MP Fedir Venislavsky announces that the ministry of defense is preparing legislation that would seize the assets and bank accounts of draft dodgers.
February 13, Dnipro. TRC officers attack a man with pepper spray on camera. Luckily, a truck driver dressed in red soon appears and chases away the TRC officers with a large stick. This man became quite the hero on Ukrainian social media over the next few days.
February 14, Odessa. The deputy head of one of the TRC centres was found by the SBI to possess a number of undeclared assets. These included an apartment and a vehicle, costing in total almost 3 million hryvnia.
February 14, Odessa. A girl tries to stop TRC officers from busifying a man. In the second video, a man is hit by a car while trying to escape.
February 14. MP Fedir Venislavsky, member of Zelensky’s parliamentary fraction and member of the parliamentary defense committee, states that there will be no demobilization. He also decries those who post videos of abuses by TRC officers, claiming that they are ‘mostly’ made by ‘artificial intelligence’.
February 15, Kyiv. Locals prevent a man from being mobilized.
February 15. Pro-war volunteer Evgeniya Minaeva calls for patriotic Ukrainians to aid the TRC officers in their missions against ‘draft-dodgers’ that try to escape. She also called for the TRC officers to be given guns so as to do ‘warning shots’ that would ‘scare the chickens’ that try to help draft dodgers escape. Many commenters were displeased with her suggestions.
February 15, Odessa. Civilians fight with TRC officers. The regional TRC blamed an ‘organised attack’, claiming that civilians used pepper spray to injure the TRC officers, leading to some hospitalizations. Notably, no policemen were visible in the video.
February 15, Odessa. A man stopped by TRC officers attacks them with a knife. The TRC states that one of their officers was wounded, with the attacker still on the loose.
February 16, Kiev. A man escaping from the TRC runs onto the ice-covered Dnepr. Falling through the ice, the TRC still detained him.
February 16, Kiev. A TRC officer handcuffs a man to himself to prevent him from escaping.
February 17. Draft-age men with medical deferments from service will have to conduct a medical check to see if they are fit to serve by June 5.
February 17, Ternopil. A TRC minivan drives over a woman’s leg.
February 17, Odessa. New charges against the famously corrupt Odessa oblast TRC. Denys Galushko, former deputy head of the organ, is accused of acquiring 37.7 million hryvnias worth of assets from 2020 to 2022, registering them to his relatives. This includes three houses and five luxury vehicles, including several Mercedes-Benz and a BMW X7.
February 17, Kiev. The 24-year-old football player Danylo Kolesnyk of the ‘Kolos’ club publishes a video to instagram of him hitting a TRC officer.
He soon deletes the video and shuts down his account. The football club he belongs to soon announces his contract had been terminated. However, top football players like Oleksandr Aliev and Artem Milevsky of ‘Dynamo’ pubicly support Kolesnyk. They praised his courage in protecting his neighbour, who has three children. Kolesnyk received criminal charges on February 18 and was arrested. He faces five years in prison
Amusingly, Mr Kolesnyk is already well-known for his aggressive actions, but in quite a different context. In 2023, he famously beat a Russian football player in a Turkish hotel.
On February 18, a new video emerges showing how the TRC had rammed their vehicle into a man and threatened to use their firearms. It was only after this that Kolesnyk attacked one of the TRC officers.
February 18, Odessa. TRC officers attack a pensioner in the face with pepper spray after finding out he is older than 60, and hence cannot be mobilized.
February 18, Kharkov. A woman, Inna Valeeva, is beaten and verbally abused by a TRC officer after she tries to take a video of 10 TRC officers attacking one man.
February 18, Zakaparttya. An explosion erupts at the Kolomiya TRC. Police call it a terrorist act.
February 19. New photos from footballer Danylo Kolesnyk’s court case show him with a black eye.
February 19, Chernovtsy oblast, Mamalyga village. TRC officers beat and pistol-whip civilians, also shooting their firearms.
February 19, Rivne oblast. Civilians clash with the TRC. One climbs on the front of the TRC minivan, and it drives off with him.
February 19, Dnipro. TRC officers discharge pepper spray canisters in a public bus to force a draft dodger to exit.
February 20, Kiev. Civilians unsuccessfully try to save a man from mobilization.
February 20, Odessa. A TRC officer beats a civilian, despite repeated attempts by his colleagues to stop him.
February 21, Lviv. Social media users report that taxi drivers have begun cooperating with the TRC. When draft age men order a taxi, a TRC minivan waits for them. Alternatively, the TRC minivan may be waiting at the dropoff point.
February 21, Odessa oblast, Chernomorsk. TRC officers beat and pepper spray a man without even asking for his documents. It turns out he is a military veteran undergoing rehabilitation. In response, civilians blocked the TRC vehicles and tried to catch them.
February 22, Dnipro. Roman Kostenko, a single father with a child suffering from developmental disorders was mobilized. He was unable to show the TRC proof of his status due to a glitch in the mobilization app Rezerv+. The TRC officially denies the claims from Kostenko’s sister.
February 22, Dnipro. Video emerges of another case whereby TRC officers fill a bus with pepper spray. The police announces that two TRC officers were charged with hooliganism for this incident, which occurred on February 13.
February 22, Odessa. A man uses a fire extinguisher against TRC officers.
February 23, Chernomorsk, Odessa oblast. Relatives of mobilized men protest outside the local TRC building. They claim that the men inside have been cut off from all communication for several weeks.
February 23. In Dnipro, a delivery man beats a TRC officer to the ground. In Krivoy Rog, a man is pulled out of an apartment corridor, with a young girl running after him.
February 24, Kyiv. The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) detains a high-ranking Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) officer. He is accused of taking two $34,000 USD bribes from mobilized men wishing to escape the army.
February 24, Odessa. Locals throw rocks at a TRC minivan.
February 24. President Zelensky accuses Russia of responsibility for busification scandals. According to him, the ‘enemy state’ is using artificial intelligence to produce these videos, though he admitted that some of them were real.
February 25. The speaker of the Poltava TRC, Mr Istomin, tells suspilne that many Ukrainians do not want to defend their country.
Even if they don’t want to defend their country, the TRC will help.
February 25, Krivoy Rog. TRC officers apparently shoot a man while mobilizing him. Local media claims that a conflict had erupted between the TRC and a father and son. Apparently one of the TRC officers was stabbed. The TRC denied that anyone was shot, but confirmed that one of their officers had been stabbed.
The media publication suspilne talked with witnesses:
“We looked out the window and saw our neighbor and his father. The father was struck very hard in the face — his collarbone was broken. He lost consciousness. Then they began firing into the air. They grabbed him and threw him into a bus. The mother came outside to try to help him, and neighbors came out as well. They started kicking him in the head and drove away with him. They also hit the mother,” a neighbor said.
The mother of the mobilized man (pictured) confirmed that her son had not updated his information with the TRC, but said he had a “white ticket” (medical exemption) due to a head injury. According to her, enlistment officers and police struck her, her husband and her son.
“My husband was lying unconscious, and the three of them were already pinning my son down here. He was screaming, and I couldn’t do anything. I tried to pull them apart, but I couldn’t. I was shouting, and then one police officer struck me in the chest and I fell. He also insulted me,” the mother said.
As a result, Svitlana’s husband was taken to hospital. After being struck on the head, he does not remember half of the events of that evening.
“He is a sick man — he has diabetes and high blood pressure. I heard my son shouting, ‘Don’t touch my father, he’s ill.’ They knocked my husband unconscious, and then my son pulled out — as I understand it — a knife and cut a TRC officer in the leg. I don’t know who those people were, where my son is now or what has happened to him. They beat him badly, very badly. There was a pool of blood, and I don’t know whose blood it was — my son’s, the police officer’s, or the TRC officer’s, I don’t know,” said the woman, who filed a complaint with the police.
February 25, Novovolynsk. TRC officers kidnap a truck driver, beating him and leaving him on the road after they discover that he has exemption from military service.
February 25, Dnepropetrovsk oblast. The regional TRC releases a post decrying the term ‘busification’ as ‘the language of the enemy’.
February 25, Poltava. Speaker of the regional TRC Istomin told media that the TRC is forced to detain people due to the unwillingness of the police to do so. Denying persistent rumours that TRC officers who do not fulfill mobilization plans are sent to the front, he admitted that those who fail to fulfill their quotas are fined.
February 26. Head of the Dnepropetrovsk oblast TRC Oleksiy Dubovyk tells parliament that there were 17 attacks on TRC officers over the course of 2025, with 8 officers wounded by gunshot or knives.
February 26, Kharkov. TRC officers severely beat a 55 year old veteran who had been demobilized due to severe disabilities. Kidnapped while taking a walk without documents or a phone, he was beaten and tied up with scotch tape. TRC officers threatened to cut off his ears, urinate on him, and leave him in a forest. When taken to hospital, doctors found he had brain trauma, hematomas on the face and body, bruises, and dislocated cervical vertebrae.
In an official statement, the Kharkiv TRC blamed the victim, one Vadym Rudyuk, because he had apparently attacked the TRC first. It was only after this that he ‘sustained injuries to his body’.
February 26, Vynnytsia. Two TRC officers ram their minivan into a cyclist and take his bicycle.
February 26, Odessa. A TRC officer shoots in the direction of a man fleeing their attention. The TRC officially stated that the TRC officer did not fire his starter pistol at a civilian, but at another TRC officer he had a conflict with.
February 27. MP Mazurashu reports the mobilization of Ukrainian world champion in checkers, Yuri Anikeev. The International Draughts Federation sent an appeal to president Zelensky asking him to allow Anikeev to compete in upcoming tournaments, but they were told he will continue serving in the drone systems battalions of the 225th separate assault regiment. The 225th, like other assault units, is known for brutality towards its troops.
February 27, Lviv. Upon being asked for documents, a man used pepper spray against a TSK officer and two police officers, hospitalizing them. The offending civilian and his friend were detained and identified as draft dodgers.
February 28, Kiev. A fight breaks out between TRC officers and civilians at the Kurenevsky market.
February 28, Kiev. TRC officers break a car’s window and drag its driver into their bus.
March 1. In Dnipro, a policeman takes off his body camera and beats a detained man alongside a TRC officer. In Krivoy Rog, civilians block a TRC vehicle. In Zaporozhye, a man is busified.
March 1, Lviv. TRC officers storm into a bus to mobilize the driver.
March 1, Zakarpattya. Oleksiy Travov, a drunk TRC chief, tries to mobilize construction workers while repairing a bridge, brandishing an automatic weapon. Local journalist Vitaly Glagola shared a photo of the intoxicated Travov in hospital. The regional TRC confirmed the incident, claiming that Travov has been dismissed.
March 2, Odessa. The prosecutor’s office announced the detainment of members of a civic organizations named ‘Ukraine is our mother’. This organization apparently worked with the TRC to extort draftable men in exchange for the opportunity to avoid the army. Documents allowing exemption from mobilization cost $1000, but this required victims to patrol the city along with the TRC. Exemption without such conditions cost $3000 USD. In order to gain access to a telegram channel displaying the location of TRC officers in the city (an illegal activity), one had to pay 3,000 hryvnia, close to $70 USD. 64 raids on the organization have uncovered 1.6 million hryvnias in various currencies, 6 firearms, 38 hand-held grenade launchers, 6 vehicles, and dozens of documents.
March 3. Commenting on the situation in the middle east, Ukrainian social media users depicted how mobilization could look in the Gulf.
