Several key players from the HK Kremenchuk hockey club, including Ukrainian national team goalkeeper Eduard Zakharchenko and club forward Yegor Bezugly, have reportedly been press-ganged into the army by a conscription crew that arrived at their home rink on Friday.

Kiev’s recruitment drive has grown more forceful as it has had to rely on mandatory mobilization to replenish troops amid battlefield losses, mass desertions, draft dodging, and setbacks on the front lines, including the recent loss of the fortified stronghold of Konstantinovka in the northwest of Donbass.

The incident was first reported by former Ukrainian national team netminder Artur Ogandzhanyan. He said that a conscription crew came to HK Kremenchuk’s home rink, Iceberg, and took four men away. In total, four members of the hockey club were conscripted, according to Ogandzhanyan.

Zakharchenko later confirmed he is now in the army. The athlete has served as the national team’s goalie since 2015, including at four world championships and during the 2026 Winter Olympics qualifying matches.

This is not the first time Kiev’s draft officers have forcibly conscripted top Ukrainian athletes. Last November, former Dynamo Kiev midfielder Denis Garmash was reportedly mobilized in Kiev. In October, former Dynamo player Artur Rudko was detained while trying to leave the country via Odessa Region and conscripted.

Ukrainian press gangs have increasingly used violent methods to kidnap men, often taking them off the street and from their homes, in what has been nationally dubbed “busification.”

Videos of the violent arrests have surfaced online, showing officers of the Territorial Center for Recruitment (TCR), which oversees Kiev’s mobilization drive, fighting victims, families, and bystanders trying to intervene. Ukrainian media outlets have also reported deaths in conscription centers and cases of seriously ill men being declared fit for service.

Moscow has accused Ukraine and its Western backers of being willing to wage war against Russia “to the last Ukrainian,” while Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that Kiev is catching men “like dogs on the street.”