Crisis of recruitment in Ukraine: The alleged abuse leads to protests and immigration Russia-Ukraine, news war

The names of the star’s mark* to protect the identities have been changed.

Kyiv, Ukraine – Artem* is determined not to join the Ukraine armed forces.

“If I resist ever, I will not fight for Ukraine,” said 29 -year -old from the Zakarbatia region in the far west of Zarkatia.

A “Recruitment patrol“Of the three police and two military officers who presented it in late June while he was leaving on Sunday in a cathedral in Ozhur, the regional capital.

Artem had paper works proving that he was the only actions of his 66 -year -old man, who could not be formulated.

But the patrol was detained and brought him to a recruitment office, where he took two officers to a separate room. He claimed that they struck him and tried to force him to “volunteer” for military service.

When he refused, he said that they had tied his faults and four hesitants and took them into a forest outside Ozhur.

Artem claimed that one of the officers ordered them to threaten arms to what was found to be a fence on the Slovak border.

Another officer photographed “men’s attempt to cross the border illegally”, which was punishable by imprisonment for up to four years, and said they could “negotiate their release fees.”

He said that his family paid $ 2000 to release him and another $ 15,000 to obtain a fake permit to leave Ukraine, as men of fighting age are not allowed, from 25 to 60 years, to travel abroad.

Artem, who spoke through the application of a correspondence from the Eastern European nation, requested that his real name and personal details and the recruitment office site claimed to be beaten.

Deep crisis

Al -Jazeera was unable to independently verify all the details of the Artem story, but some of its allegations support other cases of coercion and corruption related to the recruitment in Ukraine amid a huge shortage of the front lines forces in the battle against Russia.

Between January and June, the Ukrainian Human Rights Secretary Office received more than 2000 complaints about the use of force by recruitment patrols consisting of military and police officers.

In one case, patrol officers hit a bicycle driver in the Central Revin area with their car in January after he refused to withdraw. The investigators said that he hit him Widmur to hand him over to the recruitment office and “illegal mobilization.” In the end, patrol officers volunteered to go to the confrontation line to avoid the charges of the attack.

On August 1, the police in the city of Venets were used in tear gas to disperse a crowd who tried to storm the recruitment office and release about 100 men who claimed that they were arrested illegally.

At the same time, a few features offend their position to avoid the draft.

In October 2024, Ukrainian President Folodimir Zelensky, the prosecutor, refused after many prosecutors obtained the fake disability papers that are also entitled to large “pensions”.

In January, Oil Druze – chief psychiatrist of the Armed Forces in Ukraine, was arrested, who could announce any inappropriate recruiter for service. He is now facing up to 10 years in prison due to “illegal enrichment.”

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began widely in 2022, Druze has been said to have bought many luxury apartments, two pods of land and many BMW-cars and maintained 152,000 dollars and 34,000 euros (40,000 dollars) in cash at home.

For more than two years, recruitment patrols combed public places, metro stations, night clubs, and even breaking wedding parties in search of men of fighting – 25 to 60, more than dozens of witnesses from all over Ukraine.

They tour the regions outside their official jurisdiction. “Fake patrols” of brown men wear the uniform and then blackmail those who hunt them. Witnesses say the version fees are $ 400 or more, but those who refuse to pay are delivered to real recruitment offices.

They say that many recruitment officers are former pork who often suffer from PTSD and despise the draft of the evaders and have no concerns about insulting, abusing and beating.

It is understood that hundreds of thousands of men are hiding, causing a severe shortage of workforce. Throughout the country, there are much fewer male construction workers, farmers, chefs and taxi drivers.

Men who prefer their military papers are preferred to move with a witness, if necessary, a video tape in meeting with a recruitment patrol.

“I wander with my mother because there are a lot of checkpoints anywhere I go to,” Fernz, a Hungarian taxi driver in Ozhorud, told the island while his mother was smiling from the front seat in the old Skoda.

Meanwhile, societal division grows.

The current or ex -Ukrainian soldiers and their families are increasingly annoying about how the draft evading people will be justified of their reluctance to recruit.

“I have separated from many friends who defend their husbands or friends not to fight,” said Hanna Kovaliva, who volunteered his wife Albert in 2022. “This (mental) disgusting -” Leave another person who dies while hiding behind the skirt of my wife. “

Preventive migration

Before he is 17 years old, Bogdan* Ukraine – but not looking for better living conditions.

He lives in Central Kiev in a three -bedroom apartment with his parents, goes to a private school and spends weekends in a large country house.

But his parents do not want to be recruited.

Although this can only happen when Bogdan is 25 years old, they say they do not bear the risk of AY.

“With this chaos on the confrontation line, you don’t just want your son to die because of his officer’s mistake,” said his father Dmitry* Al -Jazeera.

On September 1, Bogdan will start the school in Prague, where his aunt lives.

Crushing and sadness – he just started dating a colleague – he says he has no choice.

“I know that I look very non -national, but I do not want to end the rot in a trench,” he told the meeting.

In January, the administration of the US President Donald Trump Kiev urged to reduce the draft age from 25 to 18 – it repeated the previous administration’s request.

Since the average age of the Ukrainian soldier has reached 45 years from 42 years ago, more and more Ukrainians who have military backgrounds agree with demand.

Instead, men between the ages of 18 years or older can serve in the “Labor Army” that makes drones and other things related to war, according to First Lieutenant IHOR Romanenko, Chief of General Staff of Ukrainian militants.

He said that mobilization must include all fighting men of fighting without exceptions – while the Ukraine economy must be “reinforced” to serve the army’s needs in the first place.

“If the non -popular strategic decisions are not implemented at home, the situation is getting worse. No foreigners will fight for us,” Romano told Al -Jazeera.