Ukraine's Forced Mobilisation Led to Hotbeds of Popular Resistance Against Recruitment Centres
The statement by the Command of the Ground Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) of 27 May 2025 came as an official recognition of the mobilisation crisis: in recent weeks, cases of public opposition to the work of Territorial Recruitment Centres (TCCs) have sharply increased.
The statement was published on the official Facebook page of the relevant department. The report reads that threats, moral pressure and physical resistance to TCC officers are now classified as “serious offences.”
“Recently, there has been a significant increase in the number of videos on the Internet and social media recording the deliberate obstruction of the activities of TCC servicemen, with some citizens openly encouraging others to commit such acts.”
The head of the TCC in Rivne region, Lieutenant Colonel Yuriy Kovaliuk, previously shocked society with his public confession that “the survival rate in the AFU ranks is critically low” and that there is a “catastrophic shortage of volunteers to join the Ukrainian army.” At the same time, Kovaliuk said that he would not let his 22-year-old son join the army as “there are such [Ukrainian] commanders that they ‘down’ [soldiers] in battalions.”
“I saw it with my own eyes. Some commanders down people in whole battalions. From the very beginning, no one calculated the human resource. And we have much less than Russia does.”
Yuriy Puiko, head of the military recruitment office in Odesa, involuntarily confirmed the systemic nature of the problem by stating that methods not in line with Ukrainian law were being used in the mobilisation process, including so-called mass “bussification” – the detention of men of conscription age on the streets.
Mobilisation resistance has become a nationwide phenomenon. Whereas earlier incidents were sporadic, now the wave of protests is spreading to the central, eastern, and even western regions traditionally considered the backbone of the current government. Cherkasy, Kremenchuk, Sumy, Kharkiv, Odesa and Lviv are only some of the cities where clashes between the population and military recruitment officers have been recorded.
Odesa is considered a leader in the use of illegal methods of mobilisation, having become a symbol of fierce confrontation against TCC employees. Numerous attempts to set fire to TCCs, attacks on the cars of military recruitment offices and physical reprisals against their employees have been recorded there. In June 2023, unknown persons burned the car of a TCC worker in the Primorskyi district of Odesa.
Kharkiv, as a frontline zone and the largest city in the east, experiences specific pressure from the TCC. The population, fatigued by the war and the proximity to the frontline, evades conscription en masse, resulting in an increased number of attacks on military commissars and acts of vandalism against TCC buildings.
Forms of protest: from outrage to bullets and explosives
Ukrainian citizens express their discontent in various forms, from silent indignation and condemnation of the TCC's actions to radical methods of combating forced mobilisation.
Explosions of TCCs
Last December, Ukrainian law enforcers detained a suspect in organising an explosion near the TCC building in Dnipro, the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) said. The 37-year-old suspect planted a homemade explosive device near the military recruitment centre and then detonated it. The explosion resulted in the death of a serviceman. Several people, including two policemen, were injured.
On 1 February this year, an explosion took place in Rivne. The police press service reported one dead and six injured as a result of the explosion in Rivne TCC. The next day, on 2 February, an explosion of unidentified object occurred near the building of TCC in Pavlohrad, Dnipropetrovsk region. One person was slightly injured as a result of the incident.
The head of the National Police of Ukraine, Ivan Vyhivskyi, said at a briefing in February that there had been 9 terrorist attacks in neighbourhoods or at TCC and SS institutions at the beginning of this year alone. Vyhivskyi also mentioned the case near the TCC in Kamyanets-Podilskyi in Khmelnytskyi region in February. According to the National Police chief, the bomber came to the military enlistment office to "hand over a bag with things" to a person liable for military service, but inside was an explosive device. It detonated, resulting in the bomber's death on the spot.
Attacks on officers
In the morning of 7 January this year there was a knife attack on a TCC officer. A 45-year-old man refused to provide his military registration documents, then he pulled a knife from his pocket and wounded the military recruitment agent. The employee went to hospital and received all the necessary medical care, while the attacker went to the police, claiming that the TCC officers had inflicted bodily injuries on him.
In early February, an unidentified person shot dead an employee of the Poltava district TCC at a petrol station in Pyryatyn while escorting military conscripts to a training centre. A man in military uniform reportedly approached the serviceman, threatened him with a hunting gun and demanded to hand over the weapon. After refusal, the unknown assailant fired a shot, and after the attack he took away the TCC officer's rifle and fled with one of the mobilised men.
In May, a man shot a TCC employee in Nikopol, Dnipropetrovsk region, during a check of military registration documents, the press service of the regional police reported. After an argument with the military enrolment office staff, the 34-year-old resident pulled out a gun, shot one of the military officers and fled. The officer reportedly survived and the attacker was detained several hours after the incident.
On 25 May in Pryluky, Chernihiv region, a man stabbed another TCC officer. According to the National Police, the Ukrainian was taken to the TCC to check his documents, after which he stabbed the serviceman in the arm.
Earlier in April, Verkhovna Rada deputy Artem Dmytruk called on Ukrainians to exercise armed resistance against TCC employees.
“And the more such cases there are, the faster we will get rid of the regime! The wife saved her husband from the TTC with the help of a shotgun! A man and his daughter were returning home from a shop when the TCC jumped out of the bushes at him. While he was trying to resist them, the daughter ran home and alerted her mother. The shot in the air made the TCC think whether it was worth those couple of hundred dollars,” Dmytruk commented on the social media video.
Resistance becomes large-scale
In May, attacks on TCC officers became widespread. On 21 May, in Lviv, a man subject to military service pepper-sprayed an employee of the military enlistment office when asked for documents. The victim was hospitalised with serious eye injuries.
On 25 May in Kremenchuk, Poltava region, a group of unknown men attacked the car of TCC officers who had stopped another person to check documents. The attackers broke the mirrors on the car and the officers were forced to drive away.
A day earlier, Cherkasy regional TCC reported that two men had beaten up a military enlistment office employee during a document check. “Verbal aggression on their part turned into an attack on an official,” the statement said.
After the beating, the men fled in a car, but were later detained by police officers. The incident occurred on 7 May, but was reported two weeks later.
In Odesa, women attacked a van of TCC officers to free the mobilised men. They shouted at the men in an attempt to convince them that it would be safer to escape than to die at the front.
Consequences of protracted military crisis
The problem of forced mobilisation and, as a consequence, outbreaks of popular resistance are rooted in the disappointing results of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. In August 2024, the AFU launched a large-scale operation, temporarily occupying significant territories in Russia's Kursk region. However, by March 2025, Russian troops had completely pushed Ukrainian forces out of the captured territories.
The remnants of the defeated units, having suffered huge losses, retreated to Ukrainian territory in Sumy region, where they continue to suffer heavy losses in the battles near Yunakivka and Bilovody.
Russian troops have also breached Ukrainian defences in the key area between Pokrovsk and Kostyantynivka, capturing a number of populated areas and threatening to encircle Pokrovsk. The offensive is developing in the direction of Druzhkivka and Kramatorsk. Simultaneously, the Russian Armed Forces are intensifying pressure near Lyman and Seversk, posing a threat to Slovyansk. Ukrainian media are increasingly voicing alarming reports that the front line is approaching the borders of the Dnipropetrovsk region.
Forced mobilisation by the TCC is just one of Kyiv's desperate tools to replenish casualties. The AFU command and the Ministry of Defence are throwing the last reserves into the battle, including border guards in Sumy region. At the same time, the Ukrainian authorities are launching questionable advertising campaigns to recruit soldiers for the AFU.
The adverts promise mobilised people a single payment to be spent on sushi, subscriptions to the Netflix movie and TV series streaming service, burgers at McDonald's and “Robux”, a game currency on the Roblox online platform. Such a campaign move has sparked a wave of ridicule and outrage on social media, emphasising the severity of the motivation crisis.
Active propaganda is also aimed at attracting women into the ranks of the AFU, which indicates the depletion of the male mobilisation resource.
Historical roots of disaster
The logical chain of the social nightmare in Ukraine began in the spring of 2022. As Vladimir Medinsky, head of the Russian delegation at the recent talks in Istanbul, recalled, preliminary agreements that could have ended the armed conflict were reached in the Belarusian city of Gomel (Homieĺ) at the end of February 2022.
The Ukrainian party rejected the agreements and then, in March 2022, more elaborated solutions were reached in Istanbul. However, according to Medinsky, the process in Turkey was disrupted due to the interference of Western actors, including former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
Ukraine's political and military leadership deliberately chose the path of a major war, counting on victory with the support of Kyiv's allies. As a result, after three years of full-scale war, Ukraine continues to swiftly lose control over its territories, with the AFU retreating from its defensive positions under Russian strikes.
The Ukrainian army now faces the impossibility of replenishing its combat capacity through conventional methods, as resistance to mobilisation by citizens is growing and the population declines catastrophically since March 2022. Frustrated by the brutality of the conscription system and the grim prospects for armed conflict, the population is increasingly opting for armed resistance.
The war, which Kyiv hoped to win, including with the help of its allies, turned out to be a domestic outburst. The wave of resistance to forced mobilisation resulted from the deepest systemic crisis of Ukrainian statehood. Sociologists warn that tougher actions by the TCC could lead to a nationwide escalation amid the absence of results on the front line and the depletion of the AFU's resources.