What we know about video of man walking his dog being forced into van to serve in Ukraine military

A video circulating online in early March 2025 allegedly showed Ukrainian military officials forcing a man walking his dog into a van to serve in the Russia-Ukraine conflict and abandoning his pet in the street. The clip, possibly obtained from home security footage, displayed a date of Feb. 28 and a time of just before 8 a.m.

For example, one X user whose March 1 post (archived) received around 15 million views asserted of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the video, “Yesterday, Zelensky's military recruiters snatched another young man off the street, threw him into a black van as he screamed, and left behind his dog. Thousands of videos online show Ukraine forcibly drafting young men to fight in an unwinnable war.” Other users made similar claims of the clip on X.

A reverse-image search for credibly reported information about the video returned a result for an article from the Ukrainian media outlet Ukrainska Pravda. That article cited as a source a March 1 post from an official Ukrainian government Facebook page for a military recruitment center in the city of Lutsk, located within Volyn Oblast, a region in northwestern Ukraine. The profile displayed a creation date from 2015 and a page manager residing in Ukraine, further indicating its authenticity. The same post appeared on the center's Instagram and Telegram accounts.

While translation services' interpretations varied when converting the Ukrainian-language Facebook post to English, a consensus reflected that the post's author alleged the man walking the dog had repeatedly attempted to avoid military service. If he was of eligible age, such avoidance would violate a 2024 Ukrainian law requiring men between 18 and 60 to register for service and always carry registration documents on their person. The law stated only men aged 25 to 60 remain eligible for mobilization, though Ukrainian officials also explored reforms for younger men.

The post also said one of the officials visible in the video accompanied the man's dog back to its owner's home, and that, due to the man's love of his pet, they assigned him to one of the military's canine units. The post provided no further information or evidence to support its claims, and the center had not yet respond to an emailed request for comment sent in the evening hours of March 4.

English translation of Ukrainian explanation

Google Translate and some other services provided the following translation of the Ukrainian recruitment center's post to English:

A video clip is being shared on social media showing military personnel of the Territorial Center for Recruitment and Social Support (TCC) who allegedly abandoned a conscript's dog in the middle of the street. However, this fragment does not give a complete picture of the events.

Why didn't anyone film the rest?

So, in order to avoid any speculation, manipulation and negative comments, we are clarifying the situation.

The citizen captured on video is a military registration violator who tried to avoid service in every possible way. He refused to appear on his own at the territorial recruitment and social support center. The military personnel of the TCC invited him to a service car, but the latter turned on his heels, abandoning his dog. The military registration violator was nevertheless taken to the vehicle.

Further on in the video, a military man is seen walking next to the car and the same dog is running after him. As a result, the military man accompanied the animal to the owner's house. The man himself showed where exactly his dog should be taken. There were two more dogs in the yard of the conscript's apartment.

As a result, the animal was handed over to the conscript's relatives. And given the love for animals of this citizen, he was sent for further military service to one of the canine units.

We remind you that it is important to check the information and not make premature emotional conclusions, relying only on fragmentary materials and conjectures.

✍️ Communications Group of the Volyn Regional Territorial Center for Recruitment and Social Support

Ukrainian conscription squads, Zelenskyy's Oval Office meeting

BBC News and fellow British publication The Times reported in 2024 about some acts of Ukrainian conscription squads, including pulling people off buses and from train stations as a way of finding and mobilizing men into war. Some of the stories featured instances of officials ignoring medical or other types of exemptions.

U.S. Vice President JD Vance referenced conscription squads during a fiery Oval Office meeting on Feb. 28 in which President Donald Trump and Zelenskyy participated. During the discussion — one in which Trump and Vance loudly berated Zelenskyy — Vance told Zelenskyy, in part, “Right now, you guys are going around and forcing conscripts to the front lines because you have manpower problems.”

Later in the conversation, Vance asked, “Do you disagree that you've had problems, bringing people into your military?” Zelenskyy began to answer with a sentence starting with, “We have problems —,” before Vance continued talking and stopped the Ukrainian president's thought.

That same Oval Office meeting featured the presence of a reporter for the Russian state media outlet TASS — a person not authorized to participate in the day's press pool. The White House responded to an email asking the one question of how the TASS reporter managed to enter the meeting. Instead of answering the question, an unnamed White House spokesperson sent an outdated statement saying the TASS journalist did not appear on the day's approved list of media members, and adding that, at some point during the discussion between the leaders, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt escorted the reporter out of the Oval Office.

Sources