‘Everyone's afraid to die’: Struggle to recruit soldiers in Ukraine turns violent

Image caption, Vasyl Krupych, a serving soldier, was assaulted while out searching for draft dodgers By Sarah Rainsford Eastern Europe correspondent , Reporting from Kyiv Published 32 minutes ago Vasyl Krupych knows what it is to fight for Ukraine. He describes terrifying scenes from battles in the eastern Donbas region where, sometimes praying, sometimes crying, the machine gunner somehow survived the onslaught by Russian troops. But last December, by then serving in the rear, Krupych was attacked by his own countrymen whilst out searching for draft dodgers. He says two men ignored demands to show their documents and fled. When his patrol gave chase, Krupych was badly beaten with a crowbar. He spent six weeks in hospital. "He broke my rib, I was lying there and couldn't breathe," the veteran recalled in a recent interview. "What did we fight for, if soldiers can now get beaten?" Surge in violence Ukraine's military ombudswoman says such attacks are now "regular" and "a major problem" as the country struggles to mobilise men to fight in the fifth, draining year of Russia's full-scale invasion. It's not a topic people here care to discuss much, wary of feeding Russian propaganda. But the latest National Police Service report recorded more than 600 assaults on recruitment officers to date and warned that the aggression has become "increasingly threatening". The first big alert came in April when several recruiters were stabbed, one fatally. Then this month in Lviv, some 200 protesters surrounded officers attempting to detain a suspected draft dodger and smashed and overturned their car. The riot made headlines as President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned violence against serving soldiers. His controversial decision since then to sack Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov – over a clash of character and vision with Ukraine's commander-in-chief – means attempts to address the conscription crisis will stall. But the anger that just exploded in Lviv suggests that the need is urgent. 'Busification' The reasons appear to range from plain fear of the front line – now everyone knows someone who's been injured or killed - to a reluctance to sign up for a war that has no end in sight. The only surge of enthusiasm since the initial rush to the front was in late 2023, when Ukraine launched a counter-offensive to seize back territory in the south-east. It didn't last. That's when the "brutal mobilisation" phase began, according to opposition MP Oleksandr Honcharenko. He blames that for the backlash. "These officers are hunting for people on the streets and sometimes using quite violent methods," the MP says. "Violence leads to violence. It's a huge problem and it's going to get worse." Image caption, Ivan Stupak said that Ukraine's high command was forced to use "busification" to tackle a lack of manpower on the battlefield Military analyst Ivan Stupak agrees. "We started to suffer a lack of manpower on the battlefield, constant losses," he recalls. "Ukraine's