A man equipped with a hunting rifle fatally shot a Ukrainian army recruitment officer on Saturday and subsequently fled with a conscript before both individuals were apprehended, according to authorities.
The recruitment officer was accompanying mobilized personnel to a training facility and had paused at a gas station in the central Poltava region when the shooting occurred.
The assailant, who was wearing a balaclava, shot the military official and seized his firearm before escaping “in an unknown direction with one of the newly recruited soldiers,” as reported by the region’s recruitment administration.
While attacks on recruitment officials are uncommon, they have occurred in both Ukraine and Russia amid heightened tensions surrounding the mobilization of men for the ongoing nearly three-year conflict.
The exact relationship between the unidentified shooter and the conscript remains unclear; however, law enforcement has detained both individuals and initiated a murder investigation.
Since the onset of Russia’s invasion in 2022, Kyiv has implemented extensive and contentious mobilization campaigns to bolster its forces in the face of Moscow’s considerably larger military.
In July, authorities reported that a grenade was thrown at an enlistment office in Ukraine’s western Lviv region.
It is estimated that thousands of men of draft age have fled the country to evade military service, while many others are in hiding to avoid enlistment.
