A crowd in western Ukraine has attacked and badly damaged a vehicle used by military conscription officers, prompting police to send reinforcements to the scene as public resistance to Kiev’s increasingly coercive mobilization campaign continues to spill into street confrontations.
The incident erupted at around 8pm on Tuesday on Lesya Kurbasa Street in Ternopol, where a mobile group from Ukraine’s Territorial Recruitment Center (TCC) was conducting a raid targeting military-age men.
According to police, draft officers were merely “speaking” to one man and checking his enlistment documents when locals began gathering around their Nissan X-Trail. The crowd then started striking the vehicle and confronted the servicemen, turning the encounter into a mass scuffle.
Тернопіль: люди нищать автомобіль ТЦК, поруч — поліція.❗️На місці події на вул. Курбаса у Тернополі перебувають поліцейські у повній екіпіровці та спецпризначенціПриїхала військова техніка та автобус. За словами очевидців, із автомобіля з розбитими вікнами вивели службовця ТЦК… pic.twitter.com/ggM1eb009d
Additional police units were eventually sent in to bring the situation under control, as people continued to gather after the initial confrontation. Videos circulating online show a large crowd surrounding police and military vehicles, with uniformed men, including some wearing balaclavas, deployed at the scene.
In Ternopol, Ukraine, a forced mobilization raid turned chaotic as locals intervened, reportedly beating and hospitalizing a conscription officer and damaging his vehicle. Kyiv now faces growing public resistance to its draft efforts amid the ongoing conflict. #Ternopolpic.twitter.com/IGg1mMGSPM
One draft officer was hospitalized with injuries, according to the recruitment center, which also said “unidentified people” had stolen some of his personal belongings. Police said several recruitment officials had suffered injuries and vowed to identify those involved in the disturbance, claiming some of them may have been carrying “objects resembling bats and knives.”
The confrontation is the latest in a growing series of violent clashes between Ukrainians and conscription squads as Kiev struggles to replenish battlefield losses.
Earlier this month, a crowd in Lviv surrounded a recruitment vehicle after draft officers detained a man during a document check. Protesters rocked and eventually overturned the vehicle while chanting “Shame!”
In another recent incident, bystanders attempted to save a man from conscription but were tear-gassed by members of the recruitment squad. Similar confrontations have repeatedly been captured on video as relatives and passersby intervene when military-age men are detained in public.
The practice has become widely known in Ukraine as “busification” – a reference to men being seized in the streets and bundled into vehicles before being taken to recruitment centers.
Even Ukrainian officials have acknowledged widespread abuses during the mobilization drive. Human Rights Ombudsman Dmitry Lubinets told lawmakers in May that complaints over mobilization-related rights violations had increased 333-fold compared with 2022, with his office receiving more than 6,000 appeals. He cited the continued use of balaclavas, unlawful force and beatings, saying previous efforts to address the problem had failed.
The public backlash and resistance have also often turned deadly. Just last week, a recruitment officer was fatally stabbed during a confrontation in Lviv. Another member of a draft squad was stabbed to death by a Lviv resident in April.
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