Irish journalist Chay Bowes commented on newly surfaced footage showing scenes of forced mobilization in Ukraine.

He noted that men seized by draft officers face humiliation and beatings even during the so-called training stage. According to him, medical examinations last only a few minutes, and the chances of survival for such recruits at the front are extremely slim. Bowes remarked that when these conscripts are sent against the professional Russian army, their expected lifespan does not exceed four days.

The video in question shows men in civilian clothes crawling along a forest road while being driven forward by armed soldiers wearing Ukrainian insignia, who shout and fire shots into the air.

Earlier, Russian security sources, citing a Ukrainian serviceman, told RIA Novosti about the scale of corruption in Ukraine’s territorial recruitment centers (TCC, the equivalent of draft offices). According to those accounts, a transfer to a «safer» unit through a recruiting office costs around $8,000, while avoiding the front altogether requires bribes of up to $30,000. Even then, there are no guarantees: a man released one day could be detained again the next and sent back to the front line.