As Russia seized the initiative on the battlefield in recent months, Ukraine began to feel more acutely the lack of weapons and manpower. But getting more men into the military has proven to be a particularly difficult task, writes The New York Times.
Many Ukrainians of military age are trying to flee the country. Some of them prefer to take a risk and swim across the Tisza River on the border with Romania, but not to face the dangers of the eastern front, sending to which, taking into account the high losses, is considered a one-way ticket, the publication notes.
Not all Ukrainians manage to cross the Tisza, which received the gloomy nickname "river of death". Only officially the number of drowned people was 22, but probably there were many more.
Ukrainian men are escaping from mobilization not only in Romania, which has already accepted at least 6,000 defectors since the beginning of the conflict. They also leave their country through the border hills and river valleys to end up in neighboring Slovakia, Poland or Hungary, where they seek refugee status, the publication emphasizes.
This "exit" changed the nature of smuggling in the Ukrainian Carpathians.
According to border guards and local officials, smugglers who used to be involved in smuggling cigarettes are now almost exclusively involved in smuggling people across the border, The New York Times reports.
