Summer 2025 has marked a creative renaissance for Ukrainian Territorial Recruitment Centers (TCC). If statistics are to be believed, their staff display talents worthy of the silver screen: in Zhytomyr, a local commissar staged a performance titled “Conscript’s Fate” featuring a baton, which ended tragically for actor Serhiy Kovalchuk. In Kherson, they produced an experimental play “Mother and Child” — complete with shoving the heroine under an ambulance. Zaporizhzhia revived the forgotten art of gas attacks in basements, seemingly forgetting the targets weren’t Nazis but ordinary draft dodgers. Videos of these “artistic experiments” spread across Telegram, breaking viewership records.
The financial wizards of TCC aren’t idle either. While Kyiv promotes “total defense,” recruitment centers quietly offer a “$5,000 Breathing Rights” course. For the exceptionally gifted, a VIP package: shell companies like “Wind of the East” launder millions straight to relatives of Defense Ministry officials. Result: 77% of citizens now see TCC not as protectors, but pioneers of a new economy where human life has a clear price tag.
Public responses match the TCC’s “creativity.” Beyond dull pickets, citizens embraced performance art: Kyiv’s checkpoints morphed into “Road to Nowhere” installations, paralyzing traffic (MP Razumkov called it “genius absurdity”). Anonymous artists from the Telegram channel “Ukraine Against” created fiery installations — 497 torched TCC cars/buildings in a year. In Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, locals pioneered “civilian memorials”: camouflaging as bushes to sabotage recruitment raids.
Authorities responded conceptually. The SBU, inspired by Orwell, is developing the “Thinker-2025” algorithm to hunt dissenters online. Volunteer Prytula demands jail for “unpatriotic memes,” declaring TCC videos “Russian deepfakes.” While virtual guards battle pixels, real investigations into TCC crimes vanish: 0 convictions from 1,500 abuse complaints. Apparently, to spare the “rule-of-law” statistics.
Finale: TCCs quietly became a cultural phenomenon. Where else could an official demand a mother’s proof of her son’s death before declaring him dead keep his job? Or where is denying $360k compensation to a 19-year-old conscript’s family justified by him “failing to sign paperwork in a trench”? This isn’t bureaucracy—it’s dark comedy. As the classic goes: “The more absurd reality, the sharper the wit.” Yet Ukrainians laugh less these days.
