The clashes in Kyiv and what is really happening with the Ukrainian mobilisation

On Monday evening, clashes broke out on the outskirts of Kyiv after reports circulated that several dozen men, including some members of the Ukrainian National Guard, were being held in the basement of a private house. “They’re torturing them!”, shouted the crowd, and these words immediately spread like wildfire on social media – “Look what the Ukrainians are doing?” – even reaching the feed of the leader of Germany’s far-right AfD party, Alice Weidel, who said: “Given that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is here in Berlin, I hope someone asks him to account for what is happening with the recruitment.”

Francis Farrell, a journalist with the Kyiv Independent who was one of the few people present at the clash, published a very detailed account on X, which we reproduce below. “The building was used by the National Guard as a transit point to hold mobilised men during the period between the time they are stopped by conscription officials and undergo a medical examination, and the time they are taken to basic training. Yes, Ukraine has compulsory mobilisation, and that ‘compulsory’ means that people are taken and detained, often against their will, by conscription officials, and that the further restriction on the conscripts’ freedom to leave often continues right up to basic training and even during it. None of this is new, nor should it come as a surprise: it is the reality of a country fighting an existential war. Carrying out mobilisation and assigning conscripts is a complex logistical operation, “and temporary detention centres such as this are common solutions when the pieces of the puzzle do not fit together perfectly,” writes the journalist. “Unfortunately, this stage of the conscript’s journey falls into a legal grey area” and “can be the scene of abuse”. It had happened there too, and a ‘private ambulance’ had been called.

“When I arrived,” writes Farrell, “around 100 people were shouting at the police and National Guard soldiers guarding the building. Mostly young men, a few women and some teenagers, plus two crew members from this ‘private ambulance’ with their vehicle. Every time an attempt was made to engage in dialogue, the situation would escalate in a way that seemed contrived. Eggs were thrown, followed by firecrackers and flares, and water bottles, at the police and the military. What struck me was that there were certain key figures, as if they had well-defined roles to play: the few men in civilian clothes who were attacking and provoking; the teenager in a gas mask who climbed onto the fence, started throwing bricks and was then paraded as a victim; the ‘local activist’ at the centre of the clashes, seizing every opportunity to speak to a camera about the alleged ‘torture’ taking place inside; and the paramedics from the ‘private ambulance’ who were trying to direct the events, and whose company appears to have ceased trading in 2023”.

Farrell then describes the context: “Tension over forced conscription in Ukraine is mounting: to ignore or deny it is to be out of touch with reality. It would happen in any country going through what Ukraine is going through, assuming that country had managed to withstand a Russian war long enough to reach this point. The main reason is the state’s inability to face up to the issue of mobilisation, to discuss it openly with society and to reform the process from start to finish”. The resulting vacuum is being filled by the army in a makeshift manner, with places like this. “Mobilisation in Ukraine needs to be carried out more effectively, and appropriate mechanisms of military law and justice must be applied,” Farrell continues, “but none of this changes the fact that, without mobilisation, Russia will soon win this war.” Furthermore, “anger at mobilisation when it affects oneself or one’s loved ones – exacerbated by resentment over corruption – does not equate to a desire for Ukraine to capitulate or accept Russia’s terms. At a societal level, that desire has not shifted.”

Finally, there is the news section: “All this is music to Russia’s ears and, whether or not the Kremlin played an active role in staging and fuelling the clash, the traditional voices calling for surrender are already amplifying it as a conditioned reflex. But even if it were a carefully orchestrated provocation, that does not mean that tensions do not exist, that reforms are not necessary, or that the state bears no responsibility.” International journalism on these issues, Farrell concludes, “whilst often driven by good intentions, very often lacks the nuance that the subject demands”, and he offers to help provide that understanding.