By Maxim Goldarb*
One of the main topics in Ukraine over the past year and a half has been mobilization into the army. In our country, everyone is well aware of the enormous scale reached not only by the mobilization itself, but also by numerous, systemic violations of human rights in the course of mobilization. While most of the media in Western countries hush up this information.
The current legislation of Ukraine defines the procedure for military registration and conscription for military service of conscripts and reservists. In particular, the procedure for serving summons for conscription into the army is regulated.
A summons for military service is a written document that is issued in the name of a specific person. At the same time, the summons should be prepared in advance¸ and not filled out in front of the person to whom it is handed. If the agenda is drawn up correctly, then the conscript is obliged to appear at the appropriate state body responsible for mobilization – at the Territorial Center for Recruitment and Social Support (TCC and SP). If the agenda was drawn up with violations, then the conscript does not have such an obligation.
By law, a summons to military service cannot be served in the format of a message to instant messengers, an SMS message, a phone call, or by sending an email. To issue subpoenas “on the spot” in front of the person to whom the subpoena is addressed, or to add data to a partially completed subpoena form, employees of recruitment centers do not have the right.
In practice, in Ukraine, there is a general, systematic violation of the legal order of mobilization.
Thus, in mid-January 2023, representatives of the TCC tried to check documents on the street in Odessa in order to issue a summons for military service on the spot.
In Zaporozhye, in mid-January 2023, TCC employees, together with the police, stopped people on the street and filled out empty summonses, which was caught on video.
At the end of January 2023, the police detained people in the villages and sent them, even without summonses, to the TCC.
At the end of February 2023, in the city of Berehove in Transcarpathia, employees of the TCC demanded documents from citizens on the street and issued summonses on the spot.
Having seen enough of such methods of mobilization, many men, while on the streets, began to hide from people in military uniform (the mobilization is carried out by the military from the TCC).
Then the authorities began to use even more blatant methods, trying to send as many people as possible to the war. In January 2023, in Odessa, representatives of the TCC hid in an ambulance, and then, when they saw men of military age (from 18 to 60 years old), they jumped out into the street, wrote out subpoenas and forcibly dragged into it those who resisted. The military themselves were soon forced to admit this fact.
In late January – early February 2023, a number of cases were recorded when TCC employees, together with the police, as well as independently, literally caught people on the streets of Odessa and a number of other Ukrainian cities.
In Ternopil in mid-February 2023, representatives of the TCC at the bus station grabbed men of military age and forced them into the bus.
Similar cases were recorded in February 2023 in: Chernomorsk; Transcarpathia; Kropyvnytsky; Cherkasy and many other cities and regions.
Otherwise, as a criminal offense – kidnapping, all these and many other cases cannot be qualified. That prove, including, and the relevant court decisions.
On March 3, 2023, the district court of Nikolaev ordered to enter into the Unified Register of Pre-trial Investigations (ERDR) a statement from citizen I. Dirk about the commission of a criminal offense. The applicant provided a video recording of how a group of persons in military uniform forced him into a car and took him against his will to one of the regional territorial recruitment and social support centers. The application was submitted under Articles 146, 371 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (illegal imprisonment or kidnapping; knowingly illegal detention, bringing home, house arrest or detention).
On March 7, 2023, in Odessa, on April 10 Street, employees of the TCC forcibly took a citizen on the street and took him to serve the summons. In the evening, his wife wrote a statement to the police about the illegal kidnapping of her husband. Criminal proceedings have been opened on this fact.
In addition, facts have been repeatedly recorded when the distribution of subpoenas is used as a mechanism for criminal or administrative punishment, which is illegal. So, on March 20, 2023, a video of a scandal with an Odessa taxi driver who expressed “not enough patriotic thoughts” appeared. And on March 22, 2023, a message appeared that “he was found and drafted into the army.”
The above examples are only a relatively small list of cases of numerous human rights violations in this area. In fact, there are thousands of such examples, and it becomes known only about those cases that were caught on video and were made public on social networks or the media.
The current Ukrainian government has organized a hunt for its own citizens. Men of military age, in gross violation of the law, are seized on the streets, sent by force to the army, after which in very many cases they are sent to the front with virtually no military training and because of this they quickly die or are seriously injured. Many men try not to go out at all, being at home as much as possible. But the need to work to feed himself and his family makes it impossible to avoid appearing in public places.
Most Ukrainian men become “cannon fodder” simply because they lack any kind of military training. However, this does not apply to the “chosen ones” – the ruling elite. None of its representatives – the president’s entourage, ministers, deputies, as well as oligarchs – are fighting at the front. The same goes for their adult sons. All of them are either deep in the rear, or even went abroad without hindrance. They prefer to make money in war rather than die in it. The ruling elite leaves the right to die in war to the working people, to the poor, into whom the majority of the population of Ukraine has become under the current government. In this regard, it should be noted that in the ruined economy of Ukraine, military salaries are almost the only possible income for the remaining able-bodied people who are forced to risk their lives and health in order to feed their families.
The class essence of the ruling oligarchy in the situation of mobilization manifests itself as clearly as possible. It is also understandable why the leading Western media are silent about this, not wanting to destroy the media picture they created of “unity of the democratic Ukrainian government and people”, which has little to do with reality.
* Chairman of the Union of Left Forces (For New Socialism) of Ukraine
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