MOSCOW, March 25. /TASS/. The people of Zakarpattia came out to protest against mass mobilization, the Ukrainian Strana edition reported.

It notes that people blocked pedestrian crossings in the Mukachevo area. A video posted on the Strana Telegram channel shows the police taking measures to disperse the protesters, detaining and taking female participants in the rally to police cars and trying to take away a phone from a man filming the event.

Strana also published an appeal from the organizers of the rally, in which they called on women, people with disabilities, and residents over the age of 60 to come to the rally against "authoritarian methods of mobilization, when [employees of military commissions] in balaclavas simply beat and kidnap people from the street." The organizers call such actions "a violation of all human rights and freedoms." According to them, these actions breed distrust in the authorities and the commander-in-chief, and lead "to revolts within the state."

Ukraine announced a general mobilization in February 2022, which it has extended many times since, with the country’s authorities doing their utmost to prevent men of conscription age from dodging the draft, including by banning male residents of Ukraine from leaving the country. Draft orders are handed out at government buildings where people seek public services, on the streets, in shopping centers and on public transportation. Even those who are physically unfit for service may be enlisted and sent to the front. According to Ukrainian media, large numbers of men have actually begun to avoid leaving their homes for any reason for months on end in order to escape being forcibly conscripted to fight.

On February 7, the Verkhovna Rada adopted the first reading of a draft law on stricter mobilization rules, which envisages limiting the rights of evaders, introducing electronic summonses and empowering the police to detain them and take them to military recruitment offices. The harsh tactics in the new document were met with criticism from the public, leading MPs to submit over 4,000 amendments to the bill.