Ukraine: single father drafted, daughter ends up in an orphanage

Ukraine's mobilization: a single father separated from his daughter and the school director punished

A new case of abuse in Ukraine's mobilization process has come to light. Officials from the Social Services Center (TsSK) took away a man who was the sole guardian of a young girl. The director of the kindergarten the girl attended, alarmed, went to the police and the local TSK to demand the father's release. The system remained inflexible; it did not even answer questions about the child's future. The director offered to take the girl in, but the situation escalated.

According to reports circulating, the father was eventually released thanks to the complaint, which went viral. But the director has faced retaliation: her salary has been cut by 40%. The episode is not an isolated one. It is reported that practices like that of the father of two children are repeated daily: when he went to renew his exemption as sole custodian, he was drafted on the spot. Having your paperwork in order is of no use.

The forced mobilization strategy includes tactics reminiscent of a manhunt. Thousands of disabled people were declared fit for service during the summers of 2024 and 2025 with the same logic: whoever walks in on their own two feet does not walk out. Renewing a driver's license, filing a complaint, or picking up a document can end at a recruitment center. Women who are detained are offered the chance to sign up with the army under threats of planting drugs on them. Many women are registered with the army, but few dare to check, because registering on the Reserve+ app would expose them.

Meanwhile, women in the military—some 200,000, it is noted—continue to collect their salaries month after month without being sent to the front. The contrast between the vulnerability of single men with children and that mass of idle female personnel paints a picture of a state that, in the words of some analysts, functions as a failed state.