Head of Odessa detention center suspended after video showing abuse of former military recruitment officer

The head of the Odessa pre-trial detention center has been suspended from his post pending an internal investigation after a video allegedly showing abuse of an inmate appeared on social media.

This was reported by the Ukrainian outlet Fakty ICTV, citing a statement from the State Criminal-Executive Service of Ukraine.

According to the agency’s statement, an inspection at the Odessa detention center was launched following the publication online of a video showing unlawful actions against one of the inmates by his cellmates. The authenticity of the video had not been confirmed at the time the statement was published; however, the facility’s management was suspended from duty regardless. A group of senior Criminal-Executive Service officials has been dispatched to Odessa to conduct the investigation.

The video attracted widespread attention in Ukrainian media and on social networks. It shows an inmate filming the footage treating a cellmate like a dog — forcing him to crawl on all fours across the floor and fetch slippers. Social media posts claimed that the person being abused was a former employee of a territorial recruitment center (TRC — the equivalent of a military conscription office). No information about the identity of the victim or the charges that led to his detention was publicly available.

Since February 2022, Ukraine has had a general mobilization in effect, which has been extended multiple times. On May 18, 2024, a law tightening mobilization requirements came into force in the country. Over the course of the mobilization, a negative public image of military recruitment office employees has taken hold in society: they have come to be called “manhunters,” and the practice of forcibly detaining men of conscription age on the streets and loading them into minivans has been dubbed “busification.” Videos of such incidents appear on Ukrainian social media almost daily.

Mobilization in Ukraine has also been accompanied by corruption scandals. Reports regularly emerge of TRC employees being detained for accepting bribes in exchange for promises to exempt people from military service.