Im Ukrainian and forced to fight for Russia —

Dmytro was born in southern Ukraine, and life was good before the Russian battle on his nation; he labored on his dad and mom’ farm. When Russia occupied his hometown in 2022, his household determined to keep back as they could not convey themselves to “abandon their home.” Dmytro stayed for them.

Later, he and his father have been forced to register for army service and threatened with fines and property confiscation.

“I don’t like it, and I felt guilty about being in the Russian army that occupied my city. I can’t call myself a great patriot of Ukraine, but I believe what Russia is doing is extremely wrong, and I don’t want me and my family to be forced into anything,” Dmytro told the Kyiv Independent.

Dmytro’s title and precise location are withheld for security functions. Being in the Russian military made him guilty. Driven by guilt, he joined the Atesh resistance motion, a partisan group that carries out sabotage assaults on Russian territory and in Russian-occupied areas in Ukraine. Dmytro says he discovered the data about Atesh on Telegram.

“After I got in touch with Atesh, I did different tasks… So far, they’ve been small ones, like fixing minor (vehicle) breakdowns that cause delays in logistics or supplies. It’s not much, but I think even this can affect combat operations,” Dmytro said.

“If shells, provisions, or reinforcements cannot arrive on time, it will have negative consequences,” he added.

Dmytro’s story, though onerous to confirm, is much from unusual. In occupied territories, studies counsel that Ukrainians are forced to take Russian passports and register for army service, which permits Russia to mobilize them.

According to Ukraine’s intelligence providers, from the start of the full-scale battle in 2022 until the summer season of 2024, Russia has mobilized roughly 300,000 males from the local population in occupied Ukraine, as reported by the Eastern Human Rights Group and the Institute for Strategic Studies and Security (ISRS).

Yellow Ribbon resistance motion, a Ukrainian civil resistance community lively in occupied areas, said on Aug. 28 that Russian army commissariats had turn out to be more lively over the earlier month in Luhansk Oblast.

“Representatives of the occupying structures are looking for potential conscripts at enterprises, in shops, and in service centers,” the report says.

The report suggests that Russia not only targets youth but also tends to focus mobilization efforts on Ukrainians in “difficult life situations,” such as orphans, youngsters of people with disabilities, and boys whose dad and mom are in the hospital with cancer or other severe health issues.

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However, Russia‘s mobilization efforts are met with vital challenges. Data from the National Resistance Center reveals that Russia is struggling to meet its mobilization purpose for 2025 in occupied Crimea, with only 963 of 1,636 people mobilized, or 59% of the annual goal.

There are a number of Ukrainians from the occupied territories serving with Dmytro.

“The commander sometimes says, especially when he’s drunk, that they are liberating us (Ukrainians under occupation) here and fighting because of us. Once, he even threatened to send us to another unit for an assault because ‘we owed our debt’ to Russia.”

He says that household and buddies who live in the occupied territory know that he was taken into the Russian military, and “are not happy about that.” But he did not inform his buddies and acquaintances who are usually not in the Russian-occupied territories.

Dmytro repairs automobiles in the Russian military and is “forced to talk with Russian soldiers every day.”

“Of course, it’s difficult and unpleasant (being close to Russians),” he said, “but we usually don’t talk about the war during our service.”

Apart from the commander, the “ordinary” troopers are tremendous with Ukrainians from the occupied territory, but they “consider the Ukrainians who are fighting against them to be Bandera supporters and Nazis controlled by the West.”

“Everyone in my unit is very tired of the war and is waiting for it to end. … I think they themselves do not understand what they are doing here and do not ask themselves such questions. Most are here for money, some, like me, because they were forced to come,” Dmytro said.

“I try to keep a cool head about my work and these conditions. I’m waiting for everything to end so I can go home and do what I used to do.”