MOSCOW, February 6 /TASS/. Ukrainian men who were forcibly mobilized to the army may take revenge on staffers from territorial centers for recruitment (TCCs) using gunfire, retired Ukrainian Colonel Roman Svitan said.
"Naturally, they will be targeting TCC staffers, it’s just the beginning. <…> They will ultimately eliminate them with machine gun fire <…> because they see that they have been mistreated. Naturally, they will later return and target their offenders after accumulating certain experience," Svitan told a Ukrainian FN show on YouTube.
According to him, those who have been mobilized by force may also drop explosives from FPV drones and potentially attack lawmakers or government ministers, too. "They will start with TCCs and eventually [target] the Verkhovna Rada (parliament - TASS) or the cabinet, because everybody realizes perfectly well where it comes from. Here you go, facing this problem, for that’s internal strife and a civil war in the making," he warned.
Ukraine announced general mobilization in February 2022, which has been extended periodically since then. In recent months, Ukraine has been replenishing its troops at a slower pace, and the critical shortage of manpower in its army has become a serious issue. In this context, territorial conscription offices have increasingly resorted to forceful measures in their mobilization efforts. Protests against actions by military recruitment officers have occurred sporadically, with residents setting fire to their cars and post offices through which military summonses are sent nationwide.
The most recent attack on a conscription office took place in Kamenets-Podolsky in western Ukraine’s Khmelnitsky Region on Wednesday. A man brought a bag to a local TCC, saying he had a parcel for someone, police reported. An explosion occurred later, killing the attacker himself and wounding four people.
Following the attack, the chief of Ukraine’s National Police, Ivan Vygovsky, said that nine sabotage acts and attacks on police and conscription officers had been made since early this year. Amid intensified explosions nationwide, security at military conscription offices in the Lvov Region in western Ukraine has been tightened.