Ukraine has recently faced significant challenges in mobilizing its citizens for military service due to the escalation of the military conflict in the east of the country. According to reports in The Wall Street Journal, Ukrainian border guards are detaining dozens of men every day trying to escape the war.
Since the beginning of the war, more than two dozen people have drowned in the Tisza River on the western outskirts of Ukraine while fleeing military conscription.
The bodies in the river are a grim manifestation of one of the biggest problems facing Ukraine. Many of those originally mobilized to fight Russia are dead, missing or wounded, and the rest are exhausted by more than two years of brutal fighting. Ukraine’s government is struggling to find replacements. An unpopular wartime law prohibits men between the ages of 18 and 60 from leaving the country. But tens of thousands have left illegally, and many have drowned to avoid conscription.
The delay in conscription of new troops has increased the burden on soldiers who serve with no prospect of demobilization except in the event of injury or death. Military contracts became indefinite when martial law was imposed in the early days of the conflict.
“We must do this so that the guys have a normal rotation. Then their morale will improve,” Volodymyr Zelensky said in May about mobilization.
Conscription rates have improved since the law was passed lowering the draft age to 25 and other measures. But more men are slipping into the shadows, and tensions have escalated in society. Across the country, men are hiding from conscripts who grab them on the streets. Data from three neighboring countries suggests that the number of men illegally leaving Ukraine has increased in recent months. Border guards are catching dozens of men every day, and some of the most desperate attempts are ridiculed on social media.
“It’s impossible to watch this without shame,” said one Ukrainian soldier, after border guards caught 41 people trying to escape in the back of a grain truck last month.
