His face is contorted with terror. ‘Get away from me,’ he begs, as three policemen drag him, shaking, towards a military recruitment desk.
Moments earlier he had been dancing to the music of one of Ukraine‘s favourite rock bands, Okean Elzy.
But now his worst nightmares are being realised. He has been caught in a round-up by one of Kyiv‘s feared military ‘press gangs’ and is almost certainly on his way to the bloody frontlines.
From the look in his eyes, it is as if he has been handed a death sentence. The moment of his arrest was captured on video by horrified onlookers who have spread the chilling footage of his abduction around the world.
But this terrified concert-goer is just one of thousands of Ukrainian men who have been evading their duty by illegally dodging the draft.
Face contorted with terror, a concert-goer begs three policemen to release him as they drag him off to a military recruitment desk in Kyiv
It’s an issue that has divided Ukraine for months.
When I visited the country with the Mail’s veteran war photographer Jamie Wiseman in May, I saw first hand the fear that young men felt at being drafted into the bloodbath that is Vladimir Putin’s war.
Fit young men of combat age were conspicuously absent from the streets of the capital, Kyiv. Many were at the frontline. But many others were in hiding.
In the district of Lukyanivka, we saw an army officer and two policemen stand outside a McDonald’s for hours, interrogating nervous male customers and surveying their papers.
Meanwhile in Mykolaiv – a city less than 20 miles from the frontline – recruitment officers patrolled the bars in the hours approaching curfew, like harbingers of doom.
Videos of young men being pulled off buses and bundled into vans were being shared excitedly in online exchanges between draft-dodgers.
Many of the men I spoke to who were vulnerable to being called up were desperate to escape Ukraine, but all men aged 18 to 60 are forbidden to leave the country.
To avoid conscription, some have attempted to flee by foot across the heavily policed border to Romania. At least 33 men have drowned trying to cross the freezing Tysa River that flows between the two countries since the war began.
One man I spoke to had twice tried to flee using his Australian passport – but was turned back both times.
Others have paid thousands for forged ‘white ticket’ exemption papers.
Earlier this week six people, including two lawyers, were arrested over a draft-evasion scheme involving fake medical papers that they were operating in Kyiv and the Black Sea port of Kherson.
This terrified concert-goer is just one of thousands of Ukrainian men who have been evading their duty by illegally dodging the draft
More than two and a half years since the conflict began, with the army’s death toll rising by the day, Ukraine is intensifying its efforts to crack down on conscription evaders.
Locals claim these now-viral videos of men being snatched from nightclubs and concert halls in the country’s capital are just the tip of the iceberg.
All around the nation, gyms, restaurants and bars have been the sites of targeted military raids in recent days in a desperate bid to replenish Ukraine’s frontline forces.
But the sight of young men being dragged off the streets and sent to the Eastern front provokes mixed reactions.
And the online videos compound the anxieties of men who have so far evaded the press gangs. One 42-year-old insists he does not want to ‘die for the patriotic propaganda of any country’.
He fears he will be killed or maimed if conscripted.
‘The videos of press gangs kidnapping men are signs of injustice and lawlessness, especially when it is done by people wearing masks,’ he says.
‘As a taxpayer, I have done enough for my country. I don’t believe I should have to fight.’
This week, Denys Sakhatsky, head of Lviv’s military recruitment centre, warned its officers would be ‘notifying citizens liable for military service about military registration during martial law’.
In a bid to replenish its frontlines in May, Ukraine lowered the age of conscription from 27 to 25 and allowed some convicted prisoners to win their freedom by undertaking to fight for their country.
Punishments for draft evaders were also made harsher.
But as more and more men return to their families dismembered or in body bags, it is becoming harder for President Volodymyr Zelensky to recruit motivated soldiers.
However, Dominika Yudashkina, 30, a tattoo artist whose husband is fighting in the Ukrainian armed forces, feels no sympathy for evaders.
‘It’s outrageous, and I have nothing but negative feelings towards the draft-dodgers,’ she says. ‘If people hadn’t been running away from mobilisation perhaps we would be making more progress with the de-occupation of Ukraine.
‘I understand many people are afraid to join the army now, but if they don’t, the exhausted defenders will simply die.’
Many of those dodging the draft claim that their liberty is at stake. But if Putin is allowed to prevail, all freedoms for all Ukrainians will be lost.
To defend Ukraine from Russia’s merciless onslaught, more lion-hearted men must take up arms and join the fight.