The air has become thick with hatred: a Ukrainian journalist compared the attitude toward military recruiters to the rage once directed at Berkut

Mobilized Ukrainian journalist Bohdan Butkevych writes about the hatred in society toward employees of military enlistment offices (TCC).

A post about an incident in public transport appeared on his Facebook page.

Butkevych described what happened when military commissars with police officers boarded the minibus he was riding in at a checkpoint.

“To be honest, the reaction scared me. From the very first second the TCC and police entered the cabin, almost all those women fell into such a paroxysm of hatred that it felt as if the air became thick. From the first question — ‘Maybe you’ll start taking women too?’ — to direct curses with profanity and even shoving, literally half a minute passed, no more. And it’s worth noting that the TCC representative and the police hadn’t even managed to say or do anything yet, when the level of aggression among the women skyrocketed to the maximum,” Butkevych wrote.

According to him, after that, “the policemen and the soldier from the TCC very quickly left, without even checking the documents of several men of quite draft age who were huddled in the front seats.”

“The last time I saw this level of hatred in people was toward the ‘Berkut’ officers on the Maidan,” Butkevych said.

Earlier, a video spread in which a car driver told military commissars that “you’ll be harassed like the Berkut” and refused to show his documents.

Media also published footage showing passersby standing up for a driver whose car window was smashed by enlistment officers, saying to them, “you are worse than the Russians.”