Wanted man with knife: resident of Baibuzivka wounded two military conscription officials — and it's not an isolated case
Incidents in Odesa region are not isolated failures but part of a trend: in 2025, attacks on territorial recruitment center workers have been recorded twice as many as in the three previous years combined.
By Tetiana Suchkova-Ladik
May 10, 2026 · 2 min read
On May 10, in the village of Baybuzivka in the Savran community of Podilsk district, a joint alert group stopped a man for document verification. It turned out he was wanted for violating military registration rules. In response, he produced a knife. Two servicemen sustained numerous stab wounds, both hospitalized in critical condition, with doctors fighting for their lives.
"Deliberate attempted murder"
The Odesa Regional Territorial Defense and Mobilization Center (TCC) classified the attack precisely this way — not as self-defense, not as a chaotic conflict. The formulation is principled: if the investigation confirms intent, the man faces appropriate punishment under the article on attempted murder, not merely for resisting authorities.
A day earlier, on May 9, in Lviv, another man, upon seeing TCC servicemen, grabbed a 13-year-old girl and held a knife to her throat. The coincidence of dates is not the only thing linking these two cases.
Numbers that are hard to ignore
According to the National Police, since the start of the full-scale invasion, 619 incidents of resistance and attacks on TCC servicemen during their official duties have been recorded. The dynamics:
- 2022 — 5 cases
- 2023 — 38 cases
- 2024 — 118 cases
- 2025 — 341 cases
Three servicemen were killed. According to ArmyInform, citing the National Police, just since the beginning of 2026, over 117 cases have been documented — as many as the entire 2024 year.
"Since 2025, resistance to the legitimate mobilization process has taken on more severe and dangerous forms. This situation clearly requires a response."
Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets
Two sides of one crisis
The surge in attacks is occurring in parallel with scandals surrounding the TCC itself: corruption schemes documented by the Security Service of Ukraine, video recordings of force being used, absence of body cameras until September 2025. The Ombudsman publicly criticizes "busification" — the practice of de facto detaining citizens without clear legal authority. This does not justify knife attacks, but explains why trust in the institution has been undermined from both sides.
The Disinformation Counteraction Center notes that Russian channels deliberately amplify each such incident — transforming criminal crimes into information warfare against mobilization.
If the state does not simultaneously resolve both knots — accountability of the TCC itself and real responsibility for attacks on its employees — the 2026 statistics, judging by the current pace, will exceed 2025 figures by summer.
