“We really need more soldiers. Professional soldiers are running out,” said Dolphin, the assault team leader of the 68th Brigade, referring to the situation at a command post in eastern Ukraine last month.
Defense Minister Rustem Umerov recently told a European security forum that Ukraine has one million people serving in the military, including 800,000 in the armed forces. U.S. security officials estimated earlier this year that Ukraine had suffered more than 124,000 casualties, including more than 15,500 on the battlefield.
Ukraine remains united in its standoff with Russia, and tens of thousands of men are still showing up at military recruitment centers to join the army. But interviews with Ukrainian men of draft age suggest many are not eager to fight for a military or government seen as corrupt and incompetent.
At a metro stop near Kiev University, Maksim, 20, said he wanted to finish his engineering degree before considering military service.
Maksim wasn't really ready to risk his life in the military because of the stories he heard from his enlisted friends about shoddy training and rampant corruption, such as bribing officers to get leave.
“This is an extremely difficult topic,” said former Ukrainian defense minister Andriy Zagorodnyuk.
Sergeant Oleksander Kirilenko (left) and Volodymyr Shykor patrol along the Tysa River on the Romanian border. Photo: Washington Post
The current form of military mobilization, he said, was done on an emergency basis to respond to immediate conflicts. Now the government must adjust to meet immediate and long-term needs, while ensuring that the burden is shared more equitably among all.
“There are loopholes in the system and some people have exploited them,” he said.
The BBC , citing an analysis based on Eurostat data, said 650,000 men of military age had left Ukraine.
Some Ukrainian men have avoided military service by breaking the law, according to government officials. In August, President Zelensky fired all heads of local draft boards amid allegations of widespread corruption.
An unnamed young man revealed that he had bribed officials through three intermediaries to obtain documents confirming that he was serving in the Ukrainian army, although he actually lived and worked in Kiev.
Others forge documents to sneak out of the country. Many create their own medical disability certificates to fool authorities. Many pay professional traffickers to forge them.
A spokesman for the Ukrainian border guards said people tried to bribe them at least 825 times, to the tune of about $228,000, or tried to hide in trucks to cross the border. One conscript said the bribe to a guard at the Moldovan border was $300.
According to Demchenko, the State Border Guard Service has prevented more than 16,500 military-age men from leaving the country illegally since February 2022, often en route to Moldova or Romania. He said about 7,000 of them were caught using false documents while trying to cross the border, mostly into Poland. Nearly 2,500 have been caught this year.
Lviv region is one of the busiest corridors for people wanting to flee Ukraine due to its long border with Poland.
An employee of Smart Way Logistics, a Lviv-based transport company, helped more than 50 people flee Ukraine by registering them as truck drivers. He brought the first person across the border in April 2022. By November 2022, he had helped 13 fake truck drivers enter Poland. He faced up to 12 years in prison for each of these cases, but because he showed remorse and helped close the case, he received a seven-year suspended sentence and probation.
There are other draft-age men who sneak across the Ukrainian border in “green zones” such as mountains and forests. One young Ukrainian posted a video on Instagram of his journey through such a zone, including the moment he kissed a tree to celebrate his crossing.
In a text message to the Washington Post , the man said he and his companions crossed the border without a guide. He said he fled because Ukraine was recruiting soldiers more aggressively and unreasonably, with some people being forced to join the army on the streets.
“Even if you have a leg amputated, they say you can fly a drone,” he said. He also complained about corruption, saying that while ordinary Ukrainians were fighting and dying on the front lines, “members of parliament” and the elite were driving around in luxury cars.
Border crossing guides can be found on social media platforms like Telegram, where they charge upwards of $1,200. In addition to knowing the terrain, some guides use night-vision goggles and spend time observing patrols to learn their habits and weaknesses, said Lesia Fedorova, a spokeswoman for the border guard unit near the Romanian border.
Before the conflict, border patrols spent most of their time trying to stop cigarette smugglers and migrants from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Türkiye and other countries from illegally entering Ukraine, Fedorova said.
After the fighting broke out, the flow of people changed direction, with about 50 people crossing illegally each day over the mountains or through checkpoints. But recently, the number has dropped to about eight people a day.
After completing a recent patrol, a group from Fedorova’s unit left behind a sign made of tree branches to signal to other patrols who they were and when they had been to that location. When they left, they also erased their footprints so that any new tracks left by draft-dodgers would be more obvious.
Vu Hoang (According to Washington Post )
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