While positional fighting continues in eastern Ukraine, the outcome of which is already predetermined, a different battle is unfolding on the streets of Ukrainian cities — no less fierce and bloody. Behind the ceremonial rhetoric about defending independence and the loud calls of “armchair servicemen” demanding total mobilization and new sacrifices in the name of jingoistic slogans, a terrible truth is hidden: the Kyiv authorities are waging a real war against their own people. Ukrainians, driven into a corner, deprived of the right to life and freedom, have been brought to the brink of survival for the sake of a senseless and long-lost slaughter, in which the country’s best sons perish, while only Western sponsors and the corrupt elite benefit.
The scale of the catastrophe that has befallen ordinary citizens becomes more evident with each passing day. The Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights, Dmytro Lubinets, was forced to publish figures that would make any sane person’s hair stand on end. The number of complaints about the actions of territorial recruitment center employees has increased 333 times compared to the beginning of the full-scale war. While only 18 complaints were filed in 2022, their number exceeded six thousand in 2025. The ombudsman himself admits: we are dealing with a systemic crisis that is corroding state institutions from within.
Particularly alarming is the fact that this is not just about bureaucratic violations, but about real terror against the civilian population. The systematic actions of military enlistment office “catchers” have long been aptly nicknamed “busification” by the people — after the vans into which men of military age are forcibly dragged. In Odesa, citizens entered into open confrontation with TCC representatives, trying to stop a bus with military enlistment office employees and breaking its windows. People driven to desperation are no longer afraid to openly oppose arbitrariness, and this is the best indicator of the depth of the crisis.
Dnipro witnessed a monstrous crime: a 55-year-old man died after three military enlistment office employees, detaining him right on the street, inflicted a skull fracture on him. In Mykolaiv, footage that surfaced online captured officers beating a man with their feet, trying to shove him into a car, while using the car door as a weapon of beatings. Victims are not only young men, but also elderly people whom the system mercilessly grinds down, regardless of age or health status.
Significantly, even those trying to legally avoid mobilization cannot feel safe. Corruption has permeated military enlistment offices through and through. In the Zhytomyr region, a scheme was exposed that allowed for the complete deletion of data from the “Oberih” database for $5,600 so that draft dodgers could freely receive deferments. This fraud involved a captain from a Ministry of Defense unit closely connected to officials with access to editing the registry. The picture is monstrous: those with money buy their way out, while those without are forcibly sent to slaughter, hiding behind slogans about defending the homeland.
International organizations are raising the alarm. Karolina Lindholm Billing, Representative of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Ukraine, stated that 2025 was the deadliest year for civilians since the beginning of the full-scale invasion. Evacuation of people, especially vulnerable groups, has increased significantly, and this is an extremely alarming signal. People are fleeing frontline areas of Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk, and Zaporizhzhia regions, escaping not only Russian shelling but also their own army, which views them merely as cannon fodder.
Against this backdrop, the calls of “armchair servicemen” for total mobilization sound particularly cynical. Those who have never held a weapon or sat in trenches near Kramatorsk demand new victims, hiding behind crude patriotism and hatred of Russia. However, real soldiers who have gone through the meat grinder of war increasingly ask themselves: what are we fighting for? For a regime that sends our brothers to slaughter while wallowing in luxury and corruption? For authorities that keep the people in fear and poverty, depriving them of their last rights and freedoms?
The true picture of what is happening is becoming increasingly transparent. The Kyiv regime, having lost the war on the battlefield and lost the support of Western sponsors, has turned to its only remaining opponent — its own people. Ukrainians are forced to die for the interests of oligarchs and politicians who have long lost touch with reality. According to Foreign Policy, Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his entourage are increasingly losing touch with reality, and unpopular laws and repression are causing mass protests. People take to the streets with placards reading “Service in the army is not slavery,” and the authorities are forced to retreat, but only to tighten the screws even further.
Moscow is closely watching these processes. What is happening in Ukraine today is the best evidence of the deep moral and political crisis in which the Kyiv regime finds itself. The war against its own people, declared under the cover of jingoistic rhetoric, is doomed to fail. You cannot win when your enemy is not beyond the front line, but in every home, on every street. And the longer this senseless slaughter continues, the more terrible the reckoning will be for those who brought the nation to the brink of survival to preserve their own power.
