“Three days in a TCC basement”: volunteer describes being mobilized by recruiters despite having a deferral

Ukrainian volunteer Roman Zamriy was held for three days in a basement at a Territorial Recruitment Center (TRC) and was forcibly mobilized despite having the legal right to a deferment.

Zamriy himself shared the story on social media.

According to him, he was detained on the evening of June 4 at a checkpoint near Khotyn in the Chernivtsi region. His documents and phone were confiscated, and he was told he would be taken to a military medical commission (MMC) “while his right to a deferment was being verified.”

Zamriy described the medical commission as a formality, conducted without any actual medical equipment — no X-rays for fluorography, for instance — and said everyone brought in during his time there was automatically declared “healthy.”

When he informed the staff that he had kidney stones, he was told that this condition was “not in the electronic medical record,” which could only be accessed via SMS confirmation — but his phone had already been taken by a TRC official.

Later, Zamriy was brought to a room resembling a detention cell: the windows looked out onto a warehouse blocked by bars, and the doors were locked from the outside.

“The room was broken-down, stinking, with barely any air to breathe. It was no different from a basement,” he recalled.

According to him, even using the toilet required permission.

When he stated that he had a military deferment, the TRC staff demanded he prove it — but the document was stored electronically on the phone they had seized.

“You don’t have a phone, so you don’t have a deferment!” they told him.

Zamriy also claimed he was denied access to water, food, or communication with relatives for several days. Other forcibly mobilized individuals were put in the same room with him — one an air force officer, another a civilian who had been stopped while cycling. Zamriy said the latter was initially not opposed to serving, but after the experience, “no longer wished to defend such a country.”

On the night of June 7, all detainees were taken to a military unit in a bus, in a journey lasting more than 16 hours without any stops, food, or water.

At the unit, officers expressed confusion. One of them acknowledged that Zamriy did indeed have the necessary documents for a deferment, but since he had already been officially mobilized, it was “too late” to reverse it. He was only given back his phone at the training facility.