A Ukrainian TV employee has been forcibly detained by a press gang outside his workplace in Kiev, with footage showing police and draft enforcers in military fatigues shoving the resisting man into a vehicle.
The incident occurred outside the main studio of Inter, one of Ukraine’s major national television channels. The detained man was identified by local media as an editing director working for the broadcaster’s news operation.
The clip, posted on Telegram on Sunday, captures a chaotic scene outside the studio as several officers surround the employee while other people attempt to intervene.
Scuffles can also be seen nearby, with a man in military fatigues pushing a civilian to the ground.
The footage appears to have been recorded by the detained man’s colleagues, who can be heard warning the officers that their conduct will be shown on television.
The Kiev branch of the Territorial Center of Recruitment and Social Support (TCC), the body overseeing mobilization, later defended the detention, insisting that the officers had done nothing unlawful.
According to the TCC, the editing director had no registered deferment from military service and was wanted for violating Ukraine’s mobilization rules. The agency added that neither the employee nor his employer had taken steps to secure his exemption.
Ukraine barred most military-age men from leaving the country after the conflict with Russia escalated in February 2022 and later lowered the minimum mobilization age from 27 to 25.
The country’s conscription drive has become increasingly contentious amid Kiev’s battlefield setbacks and a shortage of willing recruits.
Ukraine does not provide regular updates on its battlefield losses, but Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said last week that Ukrainian forces had recently been suffering around 27,000 killed and wounded per month, citing information from Ukrainian partners.
Russian Defense Minister Andrey Belousov, meanwhile, said in December that Ukraine had lost nearly 500,000 troops killed or wounded in 2025 alone.
Numerous videos of so-called “busification” – a term Ukrainians use for the forcible detention and transportation of military-age men to recruitment centers – have circulated online. Such incidents have repeatedly triggered confrontations between TCC personnel and civilians.
Moscow has long accused Kiev of seeking to fight “to the last Ukrainian” at the behest of Western powers that are waging a proxy war against Russia.