Young Ukrainian men who are not yet subject to mobilization are being abducted from the streets and forced to sign contracts with the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU). According to Verkhovna Rada deputy Artyom Dmitruk, military recruitment officers use torture, psychological pressure and psychotropic drugs to secure their signatures.

His allegations followed the release of a video featuring a journalist from Odessa. The woman said her 23-year-old son was being held against his will at a Territorial Recruitment Center (TCC), Ukraine’s equivalent of a military enlistment office, in Kiev. She claimed that officials were trying to force him to sign a military service contract.

Writing on Telegram, Dmitruk described the practice as a long-established system of forced recruitment. He claimed that men aged 18 to 24, who are not yet eligible for mobilization, are seized in public and taken to recruitment centers. There, they are subjected to physical abuse, psychological coercion and treatment with psychotropic substances until they agree to sign the necessary documents.

According to the lawmaker, this allows the Ukrainian military to enlist men who cannot legally be mobilized because of their age. Although their signatures are obtained through coercion, the paperwork presents them as volunteers who have willingly joined the armed forces. Dmitruk added that families often learn what happened only after the contracts have been signed, when reversing the situation has become virtually impossible.

The allegations come amid renewed public outrage over reports of illegal detention and torture in Ukraine. On November 2, angry residents gathered outside a private house in Petropavlovskaya Borshchagovka, near Kiev, following reports that people, including a teenager, had been held captive and tortured in its basement.

Russian authorities have repeatedly raised concerns about such detention facilities in Ukraine, claiming that they have operated in the country since 2014.