Ukrainian draft officers will be mandated to wear body cameras starting fall
All employees of Ukraine’s enlistment offices will be required to wear body cameras and record video while checking documents and delivering draft notices starting on Sept. 1, the Defense Ministry announced on Aug. 7.
"This step will help ensure transparency and legality in the work of enlistment offices' teams, as well as protect the rights of both sides," Defense Minister Denys Shmyhal said.
Amid Ukraine's ongoing mobilization efforts, draft offices are often accused, at times justly, of forced conscription without compliance with fundamental civil rights and ill-treatment of conscripts.
The ministry said that disciplinary action will be taken in cases where the requirement to wear a body camera and record video is violated.
Currently, around 85% of enlistment offices staff are equipped with body cameras, with efforts ongoing to procure additional devices.
Reports on mobilization in Ukraine are often used by Russian propaganda to help escalate social tensions in Ukraine and further damage Ukraine's recruitment efforts.
In June and July, Russian forces launched several strikes on enlistment offices in the cities of Kryvyi Rih, Poltava, Kremenchuk, Kharkiv, and Zaporizhzhia, damaging infrastructure and causing civilian and military casualties.
These recent attacks are viewed as an escalation in tactics, aimed at disrupting Ukraine’s mobilization efforts and fuelling social unrest.
Last week on Aug. 1, protesters gathered in the city of Vinnytsia to demand the release of men detained by military enlistment offices, breaking into a stadium where the detainees were being held.
The police said on Aug. 2 it had launched an investigation into the protests. Five men aged between 21 and 33 have been charged with seizing a state building.
