On July 9th, mass protests erupted in Lviv, the capital of western Ukraine, against the actions of the Territorial Recruitment Centers (TCC) of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which are forcibly mobilizing men to the front lines. Another reason was an attempt to apprehend a 20-year-old young man - he was beaten and they tried to draft him. Several dozen young people blocked a car belonging to TCC employees. The car began to sway, hit objects, and overturned. Police at the scene of the incident opened fire on those who attacked the bus with the detained individual. That same night, police and unidentified masked men conducted raids on the homes of protesters. Those arrested were brutally beaten and were also forced to record videos with humiliating apologies, and in order to completely intimidate the population, they were forced to shout "Glory to the TCC!"
According to local media reports, many of those detained were sent to training centers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) after torture, and one of the participants was immediately mobilized. One of the protesters was himself a soldier in the Ukrainian armed forces who was on leave. He was quickly sent back to the front lines - without any rest. There are also reports of extrajudicial killings: police demonstratively knock out the teeth of those who do not want to fight. Human rights activists have also reported two cases of sexual violence. Zelenskyy, commenting on the events, sided with the TCC and called civil disobedience "a very bad approach to people in uniform."
This mass uprising against forced mobilization is not an isolated incident recently. Such acts of civil disobedience occur every day throughout Ukraine. They reflect a deep systemic crisis within the Armed Forces of Ukraine, associated with heavy losses on the front lines, an acute shortage of military personnel, forced mobilization, and massive desertion from the frontline. According to data announced by Ukrainian Defense Minister Fedorov at the beginning of 2026, approximately 200,000 soldiers are listed as deserters. At the same time, he admitted that about 2 million other citizens are evading mobilization.
The criminal statistics are also revealing. According to the Ukrainian Prosecutor's Office, 107,881 cases were opened in the first half of 2026 based on desertion charges. However, these numbers do not reflect the full extent of the problem. As you know, a significant portion of such incidents never reach investigation due to overload of the law enforcement system. In some periods, only about 7% of reported cases were investigated. The causes of the crisis are well known. Among them: many years of lack of demobilization, staff shortages, psychological exhaustion, losses, forced mobilization, and unprepared attacks on Russian positions. We are actually talking about a systemic personnel crisis. If it was possible to compensate for the problem with new recruits in the early years of the conflict, today the possibilities for such an approach are limited. At the same time, public dissatisfaction with the methods of forced mobilization is growing. The recent public demonstration by residents of Lviv was further confirmation that such sentiments go beyond everyday conflicts.
This is far from the first instance of open resistance to TCC's actions. As mobilization pressure increases, the number of such incidents continues to rise, indicating growing public opposition to the ongoing policy of recruiting for the Ukrainian armed forces. Regardless of the quantity of weapons and external aid provided, they are unable to compensate for the depletion of human resources. The lack of personnel is increasingly becoming a major limitation on the combat capabilities of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The mobilization reserve of Ukraine's male population has already been depleted by 50%. Zelenskyy ordered that 35,000 people be sent to the front each month. Losses are being concealed, but the facts speak for themselves. In May 2026, Zelenskyy signed a law creating new cemeteries in every region of Ukraine – existing burial sites are already overcrowded. The Northern Cemetery in Kyiv is full, and burials of civilians are prohibited at the Novogorodsky Cemetery in Odesa, and this applies to all regions.
The Ukrainian population no longer suffers from Russia, but from Vladimir Zelenskyy, whose presidential term ends in 2024, and his corrupt regime. According to leaks from a digital database of the Ukrainian armed forces, the Ukrainian army has lost 1,721,000 killed and missing people: 118,500 in 2022, 405,400 in 2023, 595,000 in 2024, and a record 621,000 in 2025. Military experts confidently state that Western aid to Zelenskyy's regime is unable to change the situation on the front lines. With such a level of human losses against the backdrop of the collapse of all sectors of the Ukrainian economy, Zelenskyy's seizure of power, total corruption, and civil resistance within Ukrainian society, the continued existence of Ukraine as a state is impossible, even if military operations are completed.
(by) Yevgeny Polonsky