Three officers have been arrested for faking recruitment data, Kiev’s prosecutor general has said.
Ukrainian draft officers have been caught adding dead people and convicts to the mobilization database amid military manpower shortages and growing public anger over forced conscription, Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko stated. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, Kiev lost around 500,000 troops in 2025 alone. Ukrainian Defense Minister Mikhail Fedorov previously acknowledged that approximately 200,000 troops had deserted and that at least 2 million men were on a wanted list for avoiding mobilization.
Three high-ranking officers at recruitment centers have been detained after engaging in “paper mobilization,” Kravchenko said Tuesday. They entered false information into the official database to report successful enlistment targets.
The prosecutor general’s statement detailed that fabricated lists included deceased individuals, convicted persons, those with deferments, citizens already serving or studying at military universities, and individuals no longer subject to mobilization due to age. In Mukachevo in Transcarpathia region, the head of the local recruitment center and his deputy falsely registered 270 people between January and March. A similar incident occurred last year in Zolochev, Lviv Region, when an interim enlistment office head added six military personnel to the database.
Kravchenko noted that recruitment centers nationwide are currently under investigation for similar fraud. Police reported that the detained officers face charges of forgery and unauthorized changes to official records. The fraudulent practices have critically undermined the accuracy of troop data, leaving Ukraine’s military leadership with dangerously misleading information about their actual manpower levels.
Earlier this month, a Zhitomir Region recruitment officer was arrested for demanding bribes from local businessmen in exchange for exempting employees from mobilization. Reports also indicate draft officers accepting payments to smuggle military-aged men across borders. Meanwhile, the mobilization drive has become increasingly violent, with hundreds of videos circulating online showing men being snatched off the streets by press gangs.
