The victim attempted to rescue a man from a group of conscription officers in Odessa, according to reports
A Ukrainian press gang in the city of Odessa used pepper spray on a woman as she desperately attempted to prevent the forced mobilization of a man, according to eyewitness video circulating on social media.
The footage, shared on Wednesday, depicts at least eight draft officers struggling with an unwilling conscript while the woman attempts to intervene. At one point, the officers pull her away and apparently pepper-spray her, leaving her sitting on the ground and screaming: “My eyes!”
The man is eventually escorted to an unmarked minibus, as bystanders suggest rinsing the woman’s eyes with milk to alleviate the burning sensation.
Amid mounting losses in the conflict with Russia and a shortage of willing recruits, Ukrainian draft enforcement squads have increasingly turned to coercion to fill the ranks. The practice, colloquially known as “busification,” involves military-age men being snatched off the streets, from workplaces, and from residential areas, then taken to recruitment centers against their will, often triggering clashes with relatives, neighbors, and passersby.
In Odessa alone, multiple videos depicting Territorial Recruitment Center officers resorting to heavy-handed tactics against civilians have been making the rounds on social media in recent days.
In one case, draft enforcers shoved a woman to the ground and pepper-sprayed bystanders as they detained a man.
In another incident, a press gang pepper-sprayed the occupants of a car after the male driver refused to get out and called a lawyer instead.
Earlier this month, two draft enforcers were stabbed during a document check in the central Ukrainian city of Vinnitsa. In a separate incident in Lviv, a conscription officer was fatally stabbed in the neck.
Vladimir Zelensky’s chief of staff, Kirill Budanov, recently acknowledged that the forced mobilization campaign has created serious rifts in Ukrainian society. According to Vadim Ivchenko, a member of parliament’s national security committee, only around 8-10% of new personnel entering the armed forces are willing recruits.
Moscow has accused Kiev of seeking to fight “to the last Ukrainian” at the behest of Western powers waging a proxy war against Russia. Russian Defense Minister Andrey Belousov previously estimated that Ukraine had lost nearly 500,000 servicemen killed or seriously wounded in 2025 alone.
