A video has gone viral on social media showing two men with axes attacking a group of people in military uniform in a remote area of Chernivtsi region, near the border with Romania.
The video shows two people in military uniform, employees of the TCC (territorial recruitment center, former military enlistment office), talking to a man sitting astride a horse and holding an axe.
A few minutes later, a yellow Niva (VAZ-2121) car appears in the frame and hits one of the soldiers. A man gets out of the car, attacks the CCC employees, hits them with an axe and uses it to break the windows of their car.
Both offenders swear and threaten, then leave the scene. The entire conflict is watched from a distance by a group of people in military uniforms with machine guns and police officers.
PHOTO AUTHOR, SCREENSHOT FROM VIDEO Photo caption, The moment when the offender ran over a CCC employee in the Chernivtsi region.
The Chernivtsi regional police, the BBC Ukraine, confirmed that there was an attack specifically on the employees of the CCC.
Regional administration spokeswoman Karolina Marysheva said the incident occurred on March 7 in the village of Ploska, Vyzhnytskyi district, near the Gorlecha checkpoint. It is in a mountainous area about 5 km from the Romanian border.
Two local residents of the Vyzhnytskyi district arrived at the checkpoint and, according to the police, provoked the conflict themselves, and then caused bodily harm to a CCC employee and also damaged a car.
Investigators have initiated criminal proceedings on this fact.
It was established that the driver of the VAZ-2121 ran over a 41-year-old employee of the CCC. Then, getting out of the car, the offender stopped and hit him in the forearm with the butt of an axe.
Another attacker also struck a serviceman in the shoulder with the butt of an axe. The military enlistment office employee received injuries, the severity of which has yet to be determined by an expert examination.
In addition, the men damaged the windshield and side windows of the car of the employees of the territorial procurement center and fled.
Officers identified the offenders as 28-year-old and 43-year-old local residents. They were detained on suspicion of hooliganism.
Not the first such attack
The incident in the Chernivtsi region is not the first such attack.
In particular, a month ago, in another mountain village, Kosmachi (Ivano-Frankivsk region), a woman with a child was attacked, whom local residents suspected of “working for the CCC.”.
The victim went to the post office in Kosmach with her 6-year-old daughter.
However, in the village, local women blocked her way, having received information that she was supposedly a “TCK gunner,” that is, helping the military registration and enlistment office determine the presence of men of draft age.
According to the victim, the protesters began to beat the car, pull her out the window, and pull out her hair. One of the attackers allegedly stuck a bat through the window and hit the child in the head.
The Ivano-Frankivsk region police confirmed that three people, including a minor, were injured in the conflict in Kosmach. Criminal proceedings have been initiated.
It should be noted that at the end of last year and at the beginning of this year, videos of CCC employees using force against men who were allegedly evading mobilization were also being circulated on social media.
All this is happening against the backdrop of the government's bill on increased mobilization being considered in parliament.
According to Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the military command requires the mobilization of approximately 500,000 more men for the reserve and rotation of Armed Forces fighters at the front.
