Nearly 20,000 men have fled Ukraine since the start of the war to avoid conscription, the BBC has found.
Some have swum dangerous rivers to leave the country. Others have simply come out under the cover of darkness.
Another 21,113 men tried to escape but were captured by Ukrainian authorities, Kiev confirmed.
After the invasion of Russia, most men aged 18-60 were banned from leaving the country. But figures obtained by the BBC revealed that dozens managed to do so every day.
The media spoke to several men who fled to join family abroad, study or simply earn a living.
“What should I do in Ukraine?” asks a man named Eugene. “Not everyone is a warrior … you don’t have to keep the whole country locked down. You can’t herd everyone together like they did in the Soviet Union.”
The BBC found, by examining data on illegal border crossings from neighboring Romania, Moldova, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia, that 19,740 men crossed illegally into these countries between February 2022 and 31 August 2023.
While it is not clear how these men escaped, it is clear what methods were used by the remaining 21,113 who were caught trying to escape. The majority – 14,313 – tried to cross the border on foot or by swimming, and the remaining 6,800 relied on fraudulently obtained official documents stating false exemptions such as fabricated illnesses, Ukrainian authorities said.
Those excluded from military service include men with medical problems, those with caring responsibilities and fathers of three or more children.
In August, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky blamed “corrupt decisions” made by the country’s medical military commissions, which he said had led to a tenfold increase in discharges since February 2022. He announced that all regional officials in charge of conscription had been suspended, and over 30 people were criminally charged.
The president’s parliamentary representative, Fedir Venislavski, admitted to the BBC that the problem is serious.
“The government realizes that this phenomenon is not isolated and that it is widespread. But unfortunately, I would emphasize that corruption is very persistent,” he said, adding that Ukraine is doing “everything possible to keep the number of corruption cases down to minimum”.
Venislavski said the number of men who left or tried to leave had no bearing on the war effort.
“I am convinced that the resilience and willingness of Ukrainians to defend their independence, sovereignty and freedom is 95-99%,” Mr Venislavski told the BBC. “Those who try to avoid mobilization are about 1-5%. They are definitely not critical to the defense of Ukraine.” He said that no radical increase in the number of those fit for mobilization is envisaged.
The more than 40,000 men who have fled or attempted to flee may represent a significant portion of the men Ukraine needs to replenish its army. In August, US officials put the death toll in the Ukrainian army at up to 70,000 – although Kiev did not provide an exact figure.
The country also does not publish official figures on the size of its army. But new Defense Minister Rustem Umerov told the European Strategy Forum in Yalta in September that there are more than 800,000 people in the Ukrainian armed forces.
Some of the escapes have been dramatic.
One video shows a man swimming across the Dniester River towards Moldova, being pushed to safety by Moldovan border guards. Another shows the potentially fatal aftermath – bodies washed ashore of men who drowned while trying to cross the Tisza River between Ukraine and Romania.
But Yevgeny, a construction worker from Kiev whom the BBC met at a Moldovan immigration centre, said he simply crossed the border on foot – the most popular exit route, the data showed. Then it is relatively easy for those fleeing the war to claim asylum.
He says Yevgeny felt trapped in Ukraine – younger men and those with military experience were drafted first.
In the meantime, he found it difficult to find a well-paid job “because everything is focused on the war” and yet “electricity, fuel – everything went up”.
After being processed by Moldovan police, he applied for asylum – something that must be done within 24 hours of entering the country to avoid a criminal record.
Thousands of Ukrainian men joined the call to fight for their country after Russia invaded last February. But what about those who have decided that military service is not for them?
The same asylum and immigration center houses Eric, a 26-year-old musician from Kharkiv who says he crossed into Moldova by walking across the plains of Moldova’s breakaway Transnistria region and then swimming across a river.
While it may be possible to obtain fake documents, Eric’s experience shows that genuine documentation can be more difficult to obtain.
After complicated abdominal surgery for peritonitis when he was younger, Eric says he had to follow a special diet that prevented him from serving in the military. According to him, when the war broke out, it was impossible to get a medical certificate for release.
“They shift the responsibility from one department to another: ‘Go here, go there’. I spent half a year trying to get a certificate to prove I was unfit, even though I had all the tests in my hands. Eventually I ran out of patience. “
Eric eventually made it to the US, where he was reunited with his wife and their four-year-old daughter.
Another man, named Vlad, managed to get a valid exemption, but says he was then unable to get border officials to take him seriously.
He says he was thrilled to have been accepted to a foreign university course and to have received permission as a student to leave Ukraine, but soon realized that this would not be enough.
“I thought it wasn’t going to work because I got a difficult checkpoint. I went to another one, and another one. They laughed at me and sent me home. I realized that this piece of paper – this ‘permit’ – is meaningless to a border officer they don’t care at all.”
Instead, Vlad left the country by swimming across the Tisza River in Romania.
Vlad reached the Ukrainian side of the border with the help of a friend, but another man, named Danilo, says he used the services of someone via Telegram who organized the Tisza crossing.
The messaging app is a popular platform for smugglers to advertise their services, the BBC has found. An undercover reporter working for the investigation under the false name Andrei spends a month corresponding with smugglers posing as a Ukrainian who wants to leave the country.
He found at least six groups on Telegram – with memberships ranging from 100 to several thousand people. He says they offered a range of services, from adding pretend children to his family, to the most expensive option, a medical release certificate known as a “white ticket” that would allow him to leave and return to Ukraine. whenever he wants.
He was told it would take up to a week to make and would cost him around $4,300 (£3,472) – the price includes a bribe to the official making the ticket.
MP Venislavski says the threat posed by fake documentation – and the difficulty in some cases of getting genuine documentation taken seriously by border officials – should be eliminated in the next year or two through a new digitized system.
All the BBC spoke to have succeeded in their attempts to leave the country, but those caught by Ukrainian authorities risk a fine of $92-230 and up to eight years in prison.
It’s unclear whether those who flee and choose to return to Ukraine in the future could also be punished retroactively, but Venislavski says he doesn’t believe that would be in the national interest.
Danilo argued that Ukrainians should be allowed to make their own decisions.
“Because I still believe that each person chooses the purpose of his life. For some, the meaning is to protect their territories, for others it is to protect themselves and their families. Some want to create, build a business, contribute to the economy of the state . I believe that no matter what, my role is not on the battlefield.”
He says he hopes Ukrainian authorities will encourage those who left to return when the war ends, rather than punish them.
“Without people – even more so without smart people who earn good money and pay good money into the treasury – it is more difficult for the state to exist.”
With no end in sight to the war with Russia, it is unclear when this issue will become relevant. Meanwhile, as this turns into a war of attrition, Ukraine needs all the troops it can get.
Working on the post:
2023-11-18 19:00:00
#Swimming #rivers #risking #lives #false #documents #Ukrainians #escape #service
