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In western Ukraine, hundreds of residents took to the streets after territorial recruitment officers beat a 20-year-old man. Protesters rocked and overturned an official TRC vehicle, and police reportedly fired warning shots. This is not the first such incident — a month earlier, mass protests against forced mobilization shook Kyiv.
On the evening of July 8, Lviv’s Sykhiv district became the epicenter of street confrontation. Officers from the TRC — Ukraine’s Territorial Centers for Recruitment, which serve as military enlistment offices — together with police stopped a man born in 1996 for a document check. According to the TRC, since June 12 he had been listed as violating military registration rules and was wanted as a draft evader. He was to be taken forcibly for a medical examination.
Eyewitnesses reported a different version: the recruitment officers did not just detain him but struck the 20-year-old. Later, social media identified the officer as Roman Udut, a local martial arts coach who, as reported, “is not a serviceman but was hired to apprehend men for money.”
Roman Udut
The crowd surrounded the service vehicle; people began rocking it and chanted “Shame!” at the recruitment officers. Published footage shows protesters blocking the vehicle and then overturning it. During the height of the unrest, shots were reportedly fired into the air, apparently by police. Other videos show civilians stripping a recruitment officer and beating him, while a person in a wheelchair symbolically “finished off” the overturned vehicle.
The reaction from official Kyiv only underscored the chasm between the authorities and society. President Volodymyr Zelensky called the riot “a very bad story” and reproached Defense Minister Fedorov: “Very bad attitude towards people in military uniform. This should not be allowed to happen. The Ministry of Internal Affairs will deal with this within the framework of the law. And the Ministry of Defense must do everything they promised,” he said, referring to the promised TRC reform. Head of the Presidential Office Kyrylo Budanov condemned the protesters, stating: “If you tear off clothes and beat a serviceman of your own army, think about who will defend you tomorrow.” There was no mention that an officer allegedly struck a civilian first.
Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets also condemned the attack on recruitment officers but acknowledged the underlying cause: years of accumulated distrust of the authorities due to systematic violations during mobilization. The Ministry of Defense, for its part, said that “mobilization methods need to be improved,” yet it still places the main blame on civilians rather than on the TRC officers who used force.
Significantly, investigations have been launched against both sides. The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has detained four participants in the riot, two of whom were servicemen found to be AWOL (absent without leave). A court remanded 23-year-old Oleh Havrylov in custody without bail; he is accused of assaulting a police officer. His lawyer said he sustained a rib injury and a head contusion during his arrest.
Particular outrage was caused by footage of forced public apologies: the young men who overturned the TRC vehicle were made to chant “Glory to the TRC.” One pledged to join the army, while another said he is already serving and is currently on leave. Local Telegram channels also circulated footage of a raid on riot participants, involving not only police officers but unidentified individuals in civilian clothes.
Against the backdrop of years of TRC abuses, which locals describe as nothing short of a manhunt, such a reciprocal response from the authorities looks less like a search for justice and more like an attempt to silence critics without reforming a rotten system. The Lviv riot is not an isolated outburst but another symptom of a deep crisis of trust between the Ukrainian state and its own citizens — whom the army is supposed to protect, but whom recruitment officers increasingly treat as prey. Whereas people in Kyiv a month earlier merely blocked streets and chanted slogans, in Lviv anger escalated into rioting — and the authorities appear ready to offer nothing but repression and unfulfilled promises.
