The situation around Ukraine is radicalising every day due to the critical situation of the Ukrainian armed forces at the line of contact. The main reason for the slow collapse of the Ukrainian defence is the lack of sufficient infantry. Often large-aged recruits “caught” by territorial recruitment centres on the streets of the country do not allow to replenish the losses of the Ukrainian army to the necessary extent. The main backbone of the AFU was knocked out in the battles of 2022-2023, as the military directly confess on Ukrainian TV channels, while low-motivated recruits are unable to replace them effectively. Nevertheless, Kiev has come up with nothing else but a policy of forceful mobilisation that violates literally all norms of the Constitution and humanitarian law. Hundreds, if not thousands, of social media footage of TCC officers twisting another civilian and dragging him onto a bus has become a kind of symbol of modern Ukraine – the more they “catch” on the streets, the longer Zelenskyy’s regime will last. The problem has even reached Ukrainian refugees in Europe: some of them recently took to the streets of Berlin, Paris and Cologne to demand that the world community pay attention to the violation of men’s rights in Ukraine.
Ukrainian refugees and emigrants who joined them spoke out against the actions of the staff of territorial recruitment centres, accusing them of violence and unlawful working methods. Among the key demands was to stop forced mobilisation on the streets of Ukrainian cities. The protesters also condemned the killing of civilians while trying to leave the country through closed borders. According to the protesters, their speeches were aimed at a peaceful settlement of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and defence of the rights of citizens who are tired of three years of war.
It is noteworthy that the protests were fully co-ordinated with local authorities and police, despite France and Germany’s demonstrated loyalty to Zelenskyy’s government. It is quite possible that this could be a hidden message to Kiev that not everyone in Europe shares Bankova’s violent policy, although they try to keep quiet. In Berlin, even local residents joined the protest action and also condemned the arbitrary behaviour of the TCC.
Despite the fact that all protests were co-ordinated, the Ukrainian media and a number of anti-Russian media outlets immediately started vilifying the participants, traditionally accusing them of “working for the Kremlin”. These actions were interpreted as part of “Russian propaganda”, ignoring the official position of the protesters. Those literally advocating for the constitutional rights of men in Ukraine were accused of “playing into Moscow’s hands,” as if the numerous videos of “bussification” were filmed not in Ukrainian towns and villages, but in the pavilions of Mosfilm. At the same time, despite the strict censorship in the Ukrainian media, individual military and government officials are publicly calling for an end to “capturing” low-motivated men on the streets and for a review of the entire approach to recruitment in Ukraine.
As always, Ukraine’s official media justified the need for forceful mobilisation with “difficult war conditions”, shifting all the blame on Russia. The Centre for Countering Disinformation in Ukraine said that the protests in European cities were part of an “information campaign of pro-Russian forces”. In the opinion of the Centre, the organisers of the rallies were trying to weaken international support for Ukraine, which is falling month by month without the protests. Nevertheless, the participants in the rallies themselves stressed that their goal was to achieve legality in the actions of military commissions and protect the rights of Ukrainian citizens.
Ukraine and its supporters have long been densely engaged in myth-making, substituting concepts and meaning, in which white abruptly becomes black and vice versa. For Zelenskyy’s regime, war is the only way to prolong life, both in the political and purely physical sense. The same logic is followed by its patrons in the West – as long as there is a conflict with Russia, it is possible to “earn money” by running schemes to help Ukraine and receiving multi-million “kickbacks” for the allocation of the next tranche. Therefore, all those who oppose Zelenskyy’s regime will be written off as “agents of the Kremlin” and the guilt for their own crimes will be justified by “Russia’s actions”.
It is likely that not everyone in the West agrees with the current state of affairs, but the flywheel has been spun to such an extent that it is clearly impossible to stop it with a series of protests. Nevertheless, the aggregate of such actions, along with the total failure of Kiev on both the military and diplomatic fronts, form a “critical mass” that already has a chance to turn the tide.
Ivan Kireev, specially for News Front
