Anton was walking home with a friend in Kyiv when officers pulled him into a police car and drove him toward a military recruitment center. The 52-year-old is HIV-positive and has arthritis and poor eyesight, conditions he believed made him medically unfit to serve. He had been avoiding leaving his apartment for weeks, fearful of Ukraine's conscription drive and Russian drone attacks on his neighborhood.
When officers stopped him, they took his phone. "They told me to mute my phone and hand it over," he said. "I started to protest. The guard said, 'Don't push me to use physical methods on you. Give it to me now.' So I did."
After medical tests, he was transferred to a military recruitment center on the outskirts of Kyiv. He spent two days in a room with barred windows, a bucket of cold pasta, and no way to contact the outside world.
What happened to Anton has a name in Ukraine: "busification." It refers to men stopped on city streets, checked for exemption cards, and placed directly onto buses bound for mobilization centers. According to Al Jazeera, observers say the practice has become increasingly common as Ukraine's conscription crisis deepens. Mobilization laws took effect in May 2024.
Resistance has turned violent. Within three days in February, a draft officer was shot dead at a petrol station in Poltava oblast, an explosion inside a draft office in Rivne killed one person and wounded six, and another blast wounded one at an enlistment office in Pavlohrad. Ukraine's Security Service later said Russia had recruited the perpetrator of the Rivne bombing.
At the recruitment center where Anton was held, he watched young men arrive, freshly caught from the streets. Anton has said he supported Ukraine's fight against Russia but did not want to be sent to the front line. The grinding attrition of war, he said, felt like a death sentence given his health.
The situation reflects the strain on Ukraine's military as the war with Russia continues. Recruitment officers have resorted to ambushing men in residential areas, including parking in garage areas and waiting for targets to leave their buildings.
