Kharkiv Man Fires at Recruitment Officer During Document Check

Overview

• Kharkiv regional police say a 42-year-old driver fired toward a military recruitment officer during a document check on December 31 in the Nemishlianskyi district and then fled.
• The officer was not injured, the suspect was detained within hours, and a pre-trial investigation for hooliganism has been opened.
• Police did not specify whether the shot came from a lethal firearm or a nonlethal weapon.
• A day earlier in Nizhyn, Chernihiv region, locals pulled a man away from Territorial Recruitment Center staff and an assisting police officer who were trying to force him into a minibus, according to the outlet Strana, which cited video posted on Telegram.
• Ukraine’s human-rights commissioner has previously described widespread abuses by recruitment-office staff, and press and social-media reports—including the Financial Times—have highlighted personnel shortages and coercive practices often labeled “busification.”