Draft officer fatally stabbed in Lviv during papers check
A draft officer in the western city of Lviv died in hospital after a fatal knife attack during a regular document check, Ukraine's Western Operational command reported on Dec. 4.
The incident occurred on the previous evening, after the officer, Yurii Bondarenko, requested to check the attacker's papers on the streets of central Lviv.
According to the military, the man refused to present his documents, acted aggressively, and eventually stabbed Bondarenko in the groin, causing a critical bleed.
The assailant also struck Bondarenko's fellow draft officer on the head, sprayed two others with pepper spray and fled the scene.
Despite the efforts of doctors to save him, Bondarenko — who had previously served on the front line — died of critical blood loss.
On Dec. 4, Ukraine's National Police announced that the suspect in the attack, a 37-year-old resident of Lviv, had been detained.
Since martial law and full national mobilization was declared at the onset of Russia's full-scale invasion, able-bodied men from ages 25 (previously 27) to 60 are eligible to be forcefully drafted.
Initially dismissed as an exaggeration fuelled by Russian disinformation networks, the violent grabbing of military-aged men off the streets — often into waiting minivans — by recruitment officers has become a widely spread practice, as Ukraine's manpower shortage on the battlefield comes hand-in-hand with less civilian men looking to volunteer, especially to the infantry.
This practice has in turn led to incidents of violence committed against the recruitment officers, many of whom are soldiers and veterans deemed unfit for further combat missions.
As the situation on the front line continues remains difficult for Ukraine, mobilization has become one of the main sources of internal tension in Ukrainian society.
"The event in Lviv demonstrates that the mistake of a certain part of society is already creating real deadly consequences for servicemen performing their duties under martial law," the military said.
"This is not a misunderstanding, not a 'bad dialogue' or a 'conflict with the draft office,' but actual armed resistance to representatives of the defense forces who were acting in accordance with the law."
In October, residents of Odesa attacked recruitment officers at a large wholesale market, while two draft officers were wounded when a man fired upon them with a pistol in Kremenchuk, in Poltava Oblast .
