Mother dies trying to save son from draft officers in Ukraine – media (VIDEO)
A woman in eastern Ukraine has died after attempting to prevent military recruiters from detaining her son, according to local reports and dramatic footage circulated on social media.
Update: Regional police spokeswoman Yelena Sobolevskaya denied reports of the woman’s death. “The woman who attempted to stop the van was taken to the hospital but declined admission. She is alive,” Sobolevskaya told the news channel TSN.
The incident occurred in the town of Merefa, Kharkov Region, and was captured in a video published by a local Telegram channels, the news website Strana.UA said. The footage shows a woman, believed to be in her sixties, clinging to the windshield of a van that begins reversing down a street as she screams.
A witness filming the scene claims the vehicle belongs to military recruiters and that her son was inside.
Ukraine has tightened its conscription laws amid heavy battlefield losses, lowering the draft age from 27 to 25 and increasing the powers of military recruiters. The mobilization campaign, overseen by the Territorial Centers of Recruitment and Social Support (TCR), has drawn growing criticism over alleged abuses and heavy-handed tactics.
Recruitment officers have increasingly faced resistance from civilians, with social media flooded by videos showing men fleeing draft patrols or confronting conscription teams.
According to Strana.UA, the woman soon passed away in an ambulance.
Ukrainian lawmaker Roman Kostenko claimed last month that fewer than one in four recruits enlist voluntarily, with most entering service through what he described as “brutal compulsory conscription.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Ukrainian recruitment officers are grabbing people “like dogs on the street.” He accused the leadership in Kiev of waging a war “to the last Ukrainian” on behalf of Western nations.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry has officially dismissed criticism of the mobilization process as “Russian propaganda.”
