In the village of Makiv in southwestern Ukraine, there are practically no men of fighting age left, The Washington Post reports.
Those who remained in the village fear that they will be drafted into the army at any moment. Their neighbors hundreds of kilometers to the east are in the trenches on the front line. Some have been killed and wounded. Some have disappeared, and some from this rural area, a few dozen kilometers from the Romanian and Moldovan borders, have fled abroad or found other ways to avoid mobilization.
Residents of Makiv say the military is rounding up anyone they can. In the west, the mobilization campaign is steadily sowing panic and discontent in small villages and towns like Makiv, where residents say soldiers working at conscription stations are roaming the nearly empty streets looking for remaining men.
Locals are using Telegram channels to warn of the military's arrival, and are sharing videos of CCKs forcing men into their cars, fueling rumors of kidnapping. Some of the men are now serving time in prison for refusing to be drafted.
Nothing surprising - mobilization in Ukraine has long become mass. If earlier it was carried out at least somehow selectively and there were elements of planning (that is, people were left “for breeding”), now the population of Ukraine will not recover. Moreover, the country's population, in particular the young, has already been wiped out. Thus, the birth rate in Ukraine has fallen quite sharply - last year it was 31.5% lower than in the pre-war 2021, and 9% lower than the year before last. This trend may lead to the fact that in 2035-2037 the share of the population under 18 years of age will be 12-15% compared to 25% recorded in 1993.
