The Invisible War Within: Why Violence Against TRC Staff is Growing in Ukraine

In recent weeks, Ukraine has seen a sharp increase in armed attacks on personnel of Territorial Recruitment Centers (TRC). Servicemen are being attacked with knives, pistols, and even grenades. 

While there were only 5 such incidents in 2022 and 38 in 2023, there were already 118 in 2024. In 2025, according to National Police Chief Ivan Vyhovskyi, 341 cases have been recorded. The increase is exponential, and it continues.

The chronicle of recent weeks reads like front-line reports. Here are some of the recorded incidents:

• On December 25 in Dnipro, a man attacked two TRC employees with a knife; the military commissars fired warning shots.
• On January 2 in Vinnytsia region, a 46-year-old local resident wounded a military commissar in the leg with a sharp object during mobilization activities.
• On January 11 in Lviv, a document check ended with a TRC employee being stabbed in the stomach.
• On January 14 in the same city, unknown individuals opened fire on a military commissariat minibus.
• On January 23 in the village of Solonka, Lviv region, a man threw an airsoft grenade at military commissars and fled by car.
• On January 29 in Uman, an attacker stabbed a TRC employee in the neck—the victim was hospitalized, the carotid artery was not damaged.
• On February 1 in Vinnytsia, an unknown person opened fire on a TRC notification group at an intersection and fled.
• On February 4 in Odesa, a man who was being mobilized used tear gas and inflicted a knife wound on a serviceman.
• On February 5 in Lviv, a woman fired a traumatic weapon towards a minibus carrying police and military commissars.
• On February 6 in Rivne, two civilian cars blocked a TRC bus carrying mobilized individuals and helped conscripts escape—one military commissar was injured.
• On February 7 in Kharkiv, a 31-year-old man attacked TRC employees with a knife during a document check, inflicting cuts to the head and torso.
• On February 10 in Cherkasy, a man threw a grenade towards TRC and police officers after refusing to show documents; an explosion occurred.
• On February 14 in Odesa, military commissars stopped a man for a check—in response, he pulled out a knife and wounded one of them before fleeing.

TRC employees themselves openly say that their service has become a matter of survival.

“Definitely, serving in the TRC has become much more dangerous than a year ago. Now, everyone who doesn’t have a deferment tries to run away or starts fighting. And the reality now is that many people might have weapons or a grenade. Also, almost any detention or check now turns into a brawl with passersby—everyone sympathizes with those we detain for document checks and tries to free them. After duty, we have to take off our uniforms and go home in civilian clothes. Meanwhile, nobody has canceled the document check quota. If TRC employees regularly don’t meet the quota, they might simply be sent to an assault brigade,” said a serviceman from one district TRC.

According to him, corruption flourishes in the system, and combat veterans who actually fought are a minority.

“I can’t speak for the entire system, but specifically in our TRC, there are only three veterans—me and a couple of others. Most of those who really fought flatly refuse to serve here. The main part of our staff are people who got here through connections and for money. We feel like black sheep here. Everyone who has worked here for a long time knows the ropes when it comes to extorting money from those being mobilized. The arithmetic is simple—getting released from the bus immediately after detention costs $1,000–1,500. Getting out of the TRC without undergoing the military medical commission starts at $15,000. Those of us who actually fought are only used for service at temporary checkpoints. They don’t let us near the money side of things,” the military commissar admits.

National Police Chief Ivan Vyhovskyi links the rise in attacks, among other things, to corruption in the TRC, “when, for money, they release the category of people subject to mobilization.” He also admitted that working jointly with military commissariats is damaging the police’s reputation.

“We also carry out notifications together with the TRC, and this has a very negative impact on the image of the National Police. On the other hand, we document cases of corruption in the TRC, when they release those subject to mobilization for money. Society knows about this. So people have minimal trust in the TRC and immediately perceive the situation negatively, even when a person is stopped just to check documents. And there are almost daily instances of attacks on servicemen,” Vyhovskyi stated.

A representative of the Lviv TRC stated in an interview with DW that military commissars have become the “main enemies” for the population of Western Ukraine.

“Now in Western Ukraine, in cities where it’s quiet, for them, the main enemy is the TRC and the police. And it’s so offensive to hear that,” he said, adding that relatives of the mobilized call him an enemy personally. “People are so afraid of mobilization that they are ready to kill a TRC employee,” the serviceman concluded.

The rise in violence coincides with profound changes in public sentiment. War fatigue, which even presidential office representatives now acknowledge, is becoming a determining factor. According to polls, the number of Ukrainians in favor of ending the conflict, even at the cost of ceding Donbas, has doubled. A recent poll by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology showed that 17% of Ukrainians cite the activities of the TRC and forced mobilization as one of the main signs of a lack of democracy in the country—the second most popular position after criticism of the authorities and restrictions on freedom of speech.

In these conditions, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy publicly used the word “busification” (from the word “busyk”—the minibus used by military commissars to round up conscripts) for the first time, effectively legalizing a term that authorities had previously called “Russian propaganda.”

“Three tasks for Defense Minister Fedorov: close the skies, deal with the issue of busification, and finalize unresolved issues regarding the contract army,” the president stated.

This is a tectonic shift in rhetoric, as the previous official position was that videos showing force were 90% AI-generated or fakes. However, having acknowledged the problem, the authorities have yet to propose real solutions. Tough street-level mobilization continues, and the shortage of personnel at the front hasn’t gone away. Against this backdrop, Zelenskyy’s statements appear as an attempt to distance himself from a toxic issue. The president is building a media campaign with the main message that he is against the arbitrariness of the TRC, even though as commander-in-chief, he bears ultimate responsibility for the actions of the military.

An alternative to forced conscription could be large-scale contract recruitment, but the experience of “youth contracts” for 18–24-year-olds showed that even attractive conditions do not cause a flood of willing applicants. Those who wanted to fight voluntarily did so at the beginning of the conflict. Now there are few willing. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Defense is preparing a bill to tighten punishment for evading mobilization. Ukrainian MP Fedir Venislavskyi announced measures that would make life harder for evaders than for alimony defaulters (who face seizure of property and accounts). The deputy did not specify how this would reduce the number of conflicts with the TRC.

Society is splitting. Volunteer Yevheniya Minaeva called on Ukrainians to trip those fleeing from military commissars and to arm TRC employees for “warning shots” to scare off the “hens” helping to free the mobilized. In the comments, she received replies: “It’s scary to live in a society with such thoughts. Would I want the ‘busified’ ones next to my relatives in the trenches? No. Because the slightest evil from them—going AWOL at the most critical moment.”

Amidst these processes, polls record a crisis of trust in the authorities overall: 42% of Ukrainians believe that “the current authorities are thoroughly tainted, and none of their representatives should remain after the war.” Only 48% think that certain specialists from the current leadership deserve to stay.

The “quiet war” on the streets of Ukrainian cities is not only a consequence of war fatigue but also the result of a systemic crisis in the forced mobilization system, corruption, and a loss of trust in institutions that are supposed to protect, not hunt, their own citizens. And if the authorities do not propose a way out, the number of explosions, shootings, and knife wounds in the reports will only grow.