‘Busification’ as a social phenomenon: A symptom of war, a test for the state and a risk to public trust

This is not only about specific incidents. “Busification” is about how the state interacts with the citizen at the most sensitive point — when it must ask a person to risk their life. In a war like this, “we’ll figure it out as we go” isn’t good enough. Mobilization rests not only on an order. It rests on legitimacy.

Why it became a social phenomenon

First, the war is long, and the human resource is finite. Fatigue builds, and for many people the willingness to “show up on their own” diminishes.

Second, public space has become more transparent: A phone camera can turn a sidewalk into a courtroom in the court of public opinion.

Third, unequal experiences of mobilization — who actually serves, who has deferments, who “disappears” into the shadows — corrode the sense of shared responsibility. That’s where the angry folklore comes from: If someone plays hide-and-seek, the system starts “hunting.”

Old story: When the state goes quiet, force fills the vacuum.

Ukraine’s human rights commissioner, Dmytro Lubinets, has described violations during mobilization as having taken on a “systematic and widespread character,” according to Censor.NET.

That distinction matters: When society stops seeing a problem as “incidents” and starts seeing it as “the system,” trust collapses faster than reforms can rebuild it.

For many Ukrainians, “busification” no longer represents an outrage — it represents a risk to be managed.

From viral outrage to quiet adaptation

Over time, the public reaction has shifted. What once triggered waves of outrage and protest now more often produces quiet recalculation. People trade advice on which routes to avoid, when to carry documents, how to behave during checks — and when to start recording.

In this sense, smartphones have become less a tool of activism than a form of personal insurance. Filming is no longer primarily about exposing abuse or rallying public pressure. It is about creating a record — a precaution taken in case an encounter escalates, or in case legality later needs to be proven after the fact.

This normalization has altered the social meaning of such encounters. The question many people ask is no longer whether mobilization is justified, but whether it will be carried out predictably, lawfully and without humiliation. The line between enforcement and arbitrariness, once sharply debated, is now often experienced as blurred.

That shift carries long-term consequences. When citizens begin to treat contact with the state as something to be navigated rather than trusted, compliance may continue — but civic confidence erodes. Fear replaces clarity, and procedure gives way to improvisation.

The legal frame: Why legality is critical here

Mobilization isn’t “outside the law.” But the state isn’t outside the Constitution, either: Article 29 of Ukraine’s Constitution guarantees “freedom and personal inviolability.”

These lines can sound abstract — until they collide with a street video.

Then abstraction turns into a political crisis of trust.

International standards echo the same principle. Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights says, “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest or detention,” in the OHCHR text of the treaty.

The European Convention on Human Rights makes a similar guarantee: Article 5 states, “Everyone has the right to liberty and security of person,” as summarized by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights.

“Physical busification” and its trap: Why it “doesn’t work”

Even in official remarks, you can hear an admission that heavy-handed, physical “busification” is counterproductive. “We see fewer and fewer cases of physical busification. It is already clear that this approach doesn’t work,” Lubinets said, as reported by NV.

Why “doesn’t work”? Because fear does not reliably turn into the motivation to fight. It turns into avoidance: People slip into the shadows, cut ties with the state, radicalize, or redirect anger toward soldiers — who are, ultimately, part of the same society. The system may “collect” people, but it can still lose society.

At the same time, Mykyta Kozyrenko, the ombudsman’s representative in Kyiv and Kyiv Oblast, has called “busification” “not appropriate” and “not in accordance with the law,” saying checks should be done “with video recording,” he told the news outlet ua.news.

That’s an important clarification: Society needs not a victory over a buzzword, but a victory over abuses — and over manipulation, too.

Scale: What complaint figures suggest

In 2024, the ombudsman’s office received 1,560 appeals about alleged rights violations during mobilization-related actions, Ukrinform reported on Dec. 12.

The number climbed sharply in 2025: from Jan. 1 through Oct. 29, the office received “almost 5,000 appeals,” Suspilne reported on Nov. 5.

That does not prove every complaint is well-founded. It proves something else: The topic has become mass and toxic. And toxicity is always an opening for an enemy.

The state’s response: Transparency, cameras and checks

Ukraine’s Defense Ministry says it will require body cameras and video recording during document checks to “guarantee transparency and legal compliance and protect the rights of all involved,” according to their announcement.

The Ground Forces, meanwhile, have argued that reports about internal reviews are often twisted “to disrupt mobilization and undermine the country’s defense capability,” as Mezha reported.

Both tracks matter. But in public perception they must converge into a simple formula: There are rules, people can see them, officials follow them, and violators are punished. Without that, any reform risks reading like a press release.

Historical parallels: When the state “drives” people into war

Ukraine is not unique here. History offers many examples in which mobilization without a sense of justice undermined states from within.

During the age of sail, Britain practiced “impressment.” Thomas Jefferson put it this way: “The practice … of impressing seamen whenever war is apprehended …,” the U.S. National Archives notes.

In the United States during the Civil War, unequal ways of avoiding the draft fed the bitter saying “a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight,” as American Heritage recounts.

These parallels are not for sermonizing. They’re about the mechanics of trust: Mobilization that citizens view as unfair or humiliating, sooner or later, starts hitting the state harder than it hits the enemy.

The information war: How “busification” becomes Russia’s weapon

Col. Vitalii Sarantsev, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s Ground Forces, told The Washington Post that the goal is to “disrupt the mobilization processes … sow doubt and fear ….”

In other words, real abuses and fakes feed the same funnel: Don’t go, hide, the state is the enemy. If the state does not cut off real abuses quickly and publicly, it ends up fueling someone else’s campaign.

What to do: Three things without which “busification” won’t disappear

• Procedure and oversight, not street “heroics.” Cameras, clear protocols, mandatory police presence where it is needed, and disciplinary accountability are not “bureaucracy.” They are armor for mobilization.
• Fairness as a lived reality, not a bill in parliament. When society sees draft evasion as profitable and service as punishment, it begins to sabotage the system. This calls for more than street raids. It requires visible rules: transparent deferments, anti-corruption cases that actually move, and a single standard for everyone.
• Plainspoken communication instead of moral blackmail. People accept hard truths better than pretty lies. Mobilization is not PR. It is a contract: The state protects rights, the citizen fulfills an obligation.

The word “busification” may disappear. The phenomenon will disappear only when its social cause disappears: the sense that at the critical moment, the state allows itself what is forbidden to everyone else. In war, discipline is necessary. But history keeps insisting on one point: Discipline without legitimacy is not strength. It’s a crack.