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KYIV, Ukraine (AP) – Ukrainian military recruitment officers raided restaurants, bars and a concert hall in Kyiv, checking military registration documents and detaining men who were not in compliance, local media reported Saturday. Officers reportedly descended on Kyiv’s Palace of Sports venue after a concert Friday night by Ukrainian rock band Okean Elzy. Video footage aired by local media outlets appears to show officers stationed outside the doors of the concert hall intercepting men as they exit. In the footage, officers appear to be forcibly detaining some men. Checks were also conducted at Goodwine, an upscale shopping center, and Avalon,...

-snip- Under the law, the Russian government now considers individuals legally summoned for military duty if a message has been sent to their personal accounts on Gosuslug, the state public services website, or if their name has appeared on a publicly available online list of those summoned. -snip- Simultaneously, the law calls for the creation of an electronic registry of all people required to serve. The registry will collect extensive personal data, such as name, address and passport details, as well as medical, education, tax, criminal, voting, and employment records from numerous government organizations, including the police and communal services...

Vladimir Putin appears to be clamping down on Russian men trying to dodge his invasion of Ukraine by creating a new digital conscription system which would leave them unable to flee abroad. -snip- Under the new plan, Russian men will start receiving draft papers by registered post and via their personal account on the 'Gosuslugi' online public services portal - the same site used to book doctor appointments or manage state pensions. The old system of delivering papers in person will also remain in place. The new rules will apply both to conscripts and to men who are targeted in...

Russia is ready to introduce electronic military draft papers for the first time in its history in an effort to make it harder for men to avoid being drafted after the lower house of parliament gave its backing to the move. The State Duma, the lower chamber, gave its backing to the necessary legislation in two separate votes. Some lawmakers complained the changes were being rushed through without giving them enough time to scrutinise the changes. -snip- NO SECOND MOBILISATION Peskov dismissed suggestions that the digitalisation plans might spark a further wave of panic and emigration among young male Russians...

In a thick pine forest in western Ukraine, not far from the border with the Kremlin-aligned nation of Belarus, a military engineer named Anton is supervising a vast underground construction site. "It's a bunker," says Anton, who, like the other soldiers in this story, declined to give his last name for security reasons. "We shipped in most of the wood because we didn't want to cut the trees here. We need them for cover." He won't say how many soldiers the bunker, which is almost finished, will house. But he does give NPR a tour, walking us through a labyrinth...

DNIPRO, Ukraine—One Ukrainian paid almost $10,000 to flee the draft. Another has ignored five military summonses. A third avoids public spaces, fearing a military official will pounce and issue a call-up. After a year of war, Ukraine is facing increasing challenges in raising the troops it needs to resist Russian forces and eject them from its territory. When Russia invaded in February last year, thousands of volunteers lined up outside military recruitment centers. With many of them now dead or injured, Ukrainian authorities are scrambling to recruit replacements, often drafting those who have neither the desire nor the training to...

The Ukrainian army is finding it increasingly difficult to recruit new men. Not all men want to serve at the front, because of moral objections or because they want to dedicate themselves to the country in a different way. At least 26 Telegram groups that helped men escape mobilization have been banned by the Ukrainian security service. A few hours after the Russian invasion last year, martial law was declared. Since then, men between the ages of 18 and 60 are no longer allowed to leave the country. They are subject to compulsory military service, with exceptions for, for example,...

The invasion of Ukraine left Russians with a stark choice: carry on as normal or make a stand against the war. But speaking out in Russia carries huge risks. How is the opposition managing to resist the regime – and at what personal cost? 00:00 - One year on 01:37 - The first wave of protests 05:43 - Crackdown on dissent 10:04 - Individual acts of rebellion 13:51 - Partial mobilisation 16:20 - Russia’s mass exodus 23:06 - The future of Russian rebellion

Ruslan Kubay was surprised to receive a draft notice in late January. Registered as seriously disabled since childhood—Mr Kubay is missing both hands—he falls under a list of automatic exemptions from service. Even more surprising, however, was the reaction of officials at the local registration office in Drohobych, near Lviv. Far from admitting their error, they doubled down and declared him fit for service. Only a social-media post and subsequent national scandal reversed the decision. “I was disgusted by how easily our blind people can start seeing,” he wrote on Facebook. Mr Kubay’s case was an extreme, but far from...

Peering through an infrared scope, a Ukrainian soldier noticed some heads poking over a trench a few dozen yards away. “‘Are there any of our guys in front of us?’” he asked, according to an account of the ensuing firefight by fellow Ukrainian soldiers. There were not. Two Ukrainians crept forward into the muddy wasteland of artillery craters between the two trench lines outside the eastern city of Lyman, eventually reaching the wreckage of an armored personnel carrier. Using it as cover to shoot from an unexpected angle, they forced the Russians to retreat. When it was over, they found...

Ruslan kubay was surprised to receive a draft notice in late January. Registered as seriously disabled since childhood—Mr Kubay is missing both hands—he falls under a list of automatic exemptions from service. Even more surprising, however, was the reaction of officials at the local registration office in Drohobych, near Lviv. Far from admitting their error, they doubled down and declared him fit for service. Only a social-media post and subsequent national scandal reversed the decision. “I was disgusted by how easily our blind people can start seeing,” he wrote on Facebook. Mr Kubay’s case was an extreme, but far from...

A new wave of mobilisation in Russia may affect full-time students in higher education institutions. Source: Press service of Ukraine’s Defence Intelligence Quote: "The Russian Federation is taking measures to ensure the next wave of mobilisation. Currently, they are actively building up capabilities to ensure the mass mobilisation of students from higher education institutions." Details: According to Defence Intelligence, so-called "notification stations" are being set up to assist military enlistment offices in delivering enlistment notices to full-time students. Defence Intelligence found out that, in particular, the leadership of Novosibirsk State Pedagogical, Tomsk Polytechnic, and Tomsk State Pedagogical Universities issued documents...

The UK is significantly expanding a training programme in Britain to turn potentially tens of thousands of Ukrainian recruits into frontline soldiers to fight Russia, Sky News has learnt. The combat course is being extended in length to five weeks from three weeks, keeping more of the training in the UK, away from the threat of Russian missile strikes - a hazard for anyone learning how to become a soldier at sites inside Ukraine, it is understood. Some 4,700 personnel have already been through the training at military bases in the north, southwest and southeast of England since it began...