Abuse allegations against Ukraine's mobilization personnel test public trust

What are Ukraine's TCCs?

Ukraine's Territorial Recruitment and Social Support Centers, known by their Ukrainian abbreviation TCC, are military administrative bodies responsible for military registration and carrying out mobilization.

Among other duties, TCC personnel check military registration documents, issue summonses and process eligible people for military service.

TCCs should not be confused with Ukraine's separate military recruitment system. Recruitment centers help people voluntarily find and apply for specific positions in the armed forces and are staffed by civilians. They do not issue summonses.

As Ukraine's full-scale war with Russia has continued, encounters between TCC personnel and civilians have increasingly drawn public scrutiny. Videos and allegations of forced detention, beatings and other abuses have circulated widely on social media, while some incidents have led to criminal investigations and prosecutions.

The cases reviewed by hromadske show that accountability can take different forms - and that even a criminal conviction does not necessarily result in imprisonment or removal from military service.

Convicted of torture, but spared prison

One of the clearest examples of how TCC personnel have been held accountable comes from Rivne Oblast in western Ukraine.

In February 2025, three TCC servicemen stopped a man riding a bicycle near the city of Dubno. The defendants later told the court that the man had refused to stop and fired a flare gun.

According to court records reviewed by hromadske, the servicemen used tear gas, grabbed the man by his clothing, beat him on the head and body and forced him into their vehicle. The court found that this amounted to unlawful deprivation of liberty.

Two of the servicemen continued beating the man inside the vehicle. They later told the court they wanted to punish him for firing the flare gun and force him to provide his personal information. The court classified their actions as torture.

The victim suffered bruising to his forehead and temple and bleeding under the skin of his hand, injuries classified as minor.

In December 2025, a court convicted the two servicemen of torture and unlawful deprivation of liberty and sentenced each to four years in prison. Neither went to prison: the court suspended their sentences and placed them on probation for between one year and 18 months.

Proceedings against the third serviceman were handled separately. In July 2026, he was convicted of the same offenses and also sentenced to four years in prison, but was released on 18 months' probation.

All three pleaded guilty, expressed remorse and compensated the victim for material and moral damages. The victim told the court he had no further claims against them. The court concluded that they could be rehabilitated without serving prison sentences.

All three remained in military service. Two continued serving at TCCs, while the third, who had been a senior mobilization officer at the time of the offense, was serving as the head of an intelligence unit at a military unit by the time he was sentenced.

Former prisoner of war alleges beating by TCC personnel

Roman Pokydko, a 27-year-old Marine with Ukraine's 36th Marine Brigade, was undergoing rehabilitation in Odesa after being released from Russian captivity when he encountered a group of TCC personnel in December 2025.

Pokydko was on his way to a military hospital for a medical examination when nine people who identified themselves as TCC servicemen stopped him, according to activists with the Odesa branch of the Ukrainian civic organization Zakhyst Derzhavy.

The activists said Pokydko showed his military ID, medical documents and combat veteran certificate, but was nevertheless forced into an official vehicle, sprayed with an irritant, beaten and later thrown from the moving vehicle.

Pokydko filed a police complaint, and authorities opened a criminal investigation. After the case attracted public attention, the Odesa regional TCC said it was aware of the incident and had launched an internal investigation before information about it appeared on social media.

Two TCC servicemen were later charged in connection with the incident. One was charged with intentionally causing minor bodily injuries, while the other was charged over violent acts that caused physical pain. The case was sent to court in January 2026 and remains pending, with further hearings scheduled for September.

Pokydko has also filed a civil claim seeking 150,000 hryvnias ($3,350) in damages from the defendants.

The Odesa regional TCC told hromadske that neither serviceman had been suspended from duty over the incident. It also said no internal investigation had been conducted and neither had faced disciplinary action - despite the TCC's earlier public statement that such an investigation had been launched.

One of the defendants was transferred from the TCC to Ukraine's 53rd Mechanized Brigade in July 2026. The other is currently in custody in a separate criminal case.

Another prison sentence, another probation term

A separate case in the western city of Ternopil ended with a similar outcome.

According to court records, TCC servicemen stopped a man outside a supermarket in October 2023 and asked to see his documents. After seeing that he had been born in Russia, one serviceman called him a collaborator and told him he had to go to the TCC.

When the man refused and called the police, he was beaten, forced into a minibus and taken to the recruitment center, the court found. Later that night, during a confrontation at the TCC, the same serviceman assaulted him again.

The victim suffered three fractured ribs, a broken hand bone, a fracture to the wall of his maxillary sinus, and multiple bruises and abrasions.

In May 2026, the serviceman was convicted of unlawful deprivation of liberty and intentionally causing moderate bodily injury. He was sentenced to three years in prison but released on one year's probation.

Another TCC serviceman who assaulted a second man during the same incident was fined 850 hryvnias ($20) for causing minor bodily injuries.

A torture case still before the courts

A separate case involving four TCC servicemen, including a deputy head of a recruitment center, is still being heard in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast.

Prosecutors allege that in November 2025, the servicemen used force against a man who refused to undergo a military medical examination. One of the defendants, a lieutenant colonel, is accused of repeatedly striking the man in the groin while other servicemen restrained him and of using tear gas against him.

The man was declared fit for military service the following day and mobilized. He later underwent surgery at his military unit in which his left testicle was removed.

Four servicemen are defendants in the torture case. They were initially held in custody with bail set at 399,360 hryvnias (about $8,900) each. Bail was posted for two of them, including the deputy TCC head, and an appeals court rejected prosecutors' attempt to return them to custody.

The deputy head was subsequently transferred to Ukraine's 167th Mechanized Brigade, while another defendant continues to serve at the TCC. The trial remains ongoing.

So what happens when TCC personnel are accused or convicted?

The cases reviewed by hromadske show that criminal investigations and prosecutions of TCC personnel do take place. But being charged - or even convicted - does not necessarily mean a serviceman is removed from military service or sent to prison.

Dismissal from military service is difficult even when criminal proceedings are underway. Personnel accused or convicted of offenses may remain at TCCs or be transferred to other military units, including combat brigades.

The outcomes also vary considerably. In the Rivne and Ternopil cases reviewed by hromadske, servicemen received prison sentences for offenses involving violence or unlawful detention but were allowed to remain free on probation.

Actual imprisonment is possible. In a separate corruption case, a serviceman who had been assigned to a TCC after being wounded while serving in the Armed Forces was sentenced to five years in prison in May 2025. A court found that he had accepted $6,000 to help arrange documents declaring a man unfit for military service, as well as smaller payments for fraudulent summonses.

Official nationwide statistics provide only a limited picture. Ukraine's State Judicial Administration records convictions of military personnel for offenses including torture, unlawful deprivation of liberty and bribery, but does not separately identify servicemen working at TCCs.

Ukraine's Defense Ministry has itself acknowledged shortcomings in the current system.

Speaking at a parliamentary commission meeting on Aug. 19, Deputy Defense Minister Liubov Halan said criminal investigations into violations during mobilization were taking place, but the existing response was insufficient.

“We need to address the root causes of these violations and violations committed during mobilization measures,” Halan said. “Criminal cases are being opened and law enforcement agencies are working, but the system operates in such a way that this is not enough.”

Abuse, public trust and mobilization

The consequences extend beyond individual criminal cases. Allegations of abuse by TCC personnel have become a prominent part of Ukraine's public debate over mobilization, while videos of confrontations between civilians and mobilization officials regularly circulate on social media.

Documented cases of abuse and inconsistent accountability can make broader claims that TCC personnel operate with impunity more persuasive, even though the cases reviewed by hromadske do not establish that such abuses are universal or that offenders are never punished.

That distinction matters because genuine cases are also used to support misleading narratives about Ukraine's mobilization system as a whole.

Hromadske identified posts promoting such narratives that collectively received more than 4.9 million views on Telegram, Facebook and Instagram during the first half of August 2026 alone. They included claims portraying abuses as systematic and criminal proceedings against TCC personnel as merely performative.

The figure reflects views of the posts identified in hromadske's analysis and should not be interpreted as the number of individual people who saw them.

The combination poses a challenge for the Ukrainian state: enforcing mobilization while maintaining public confidence that violations committed in the process will be investigated and punished.

Halan, the deputy defense minister, told lawmakers that addressing individual cases was not enough and that the causes of violations during mobilization also needed to be addressed.

For Ukraine, which continues to need personnel to sustain its defense against Russia, accountability for abuses during mobilization is therefore not only a matter of individual justice. It is also part of maintaining public trust in the system responsible for bringing new soldiers into the military.