“Driven around courtyards and beaten”: a serviceman said he was attacked by TCC officers after returning from captivity

In Odesa, employees of a territorial recruitment center attacked a serviceman who had been released from Russian captivity.

This was recounted by the victim himself, Dmytro Kashchuk, who was returned to Ukraine in May 2025.

According to the man, as he was getting into his car, minibuses pulled up beside him, after which unknown men snatched the keys from his hands and forcibly shoved him inside. There, Dmytro was struck several times in the face, had his phone taken away, and was driven around courtyards for about twenty minutes.

“They were hitting me from behind. One of them stood in the aisle wearing gloves and kept shouting to another the whole way: ‘Come on, let’s beat the hell out of him now!’” Kashchuk said.

Dmytro tried to explain that he had been through Russian captivity and also had a disability.

“I said, guys, I was in captivity, look in my phone, everything is there. They asked: what illness do you have? I said: third disability group. And they told me: you’re still going to the brigade anyway,” the man recalled.

Only after twenty minutes, once they realized they had shoved a demobilized serviceman into the van, did the enlistment officers decide to get rid of him.

“To say they dropped me off would be too mild. They just opened the door and said: ‘Get the hell out,’” the victim said.

Earlier, the media covered another case in which Odesa recruitment center employees broke the arm of a serviceman who had been discharged from service.