As Ukraine approaches its third year of war, those men are needed more than ever. The leaders are still pleading for more weapons and ammunition from the United States and Europe — even as signs of flagging support among those allies suggest that Ukraine may have to do more to arm itself. But even more than bullets, Ukraine needs fighters, leading to a search for new ways to mobilize the population and stronger measures against draft dodgers.
Following Russia’s full-scale invasion, men ages 18 to 60 were forbidden from leaving the country. Many bypass military service through the equivalent of medical disabilities, college deferments or family obligations. A father with three or more children is exempt, as are those who have family members already serving in the military.
Some of those seeking to escape hire guides to lead them through the mountains. Others make the risky trip alone. One of them, a 46-year-old man who lost his way last month, suffered severe frostbite and died soon after he was found. At least 25 men have drowned while crossing the Tysa River separating Ukraine from Moldova and Romania.
But the most common escape route has been major border crossings. Many rely on fake documents to slip out of the country. Others have resorted to more elaborate, even desperate, schemes.
Men have squeezed themselves into secret compartments in vehicles, posed as clergy members and dressed as women to sneak past border checkpoints, said Andriy Demchenko, a spokesman at the headquarters of the State Border Guard Service. A freight company employee took payoffs to sign up draft-age men as truck drivers who then disappeared over the border with Poland. A 20-year-old man entered into a bogus marriage with a relative with a disability and tried to exit the country as her caregiver.
“As of now, I’m not surprised at anything,” Demchenko said.
President Volodymyr Zelensky, himself, has recognized that there is a problem. “Everyone in Ukraine understands that changes are needed in this area,” said last week, adding that the problem goes beyond raw numbers and includes current conditions and terms of service.
Readying for the long haul
The need for more troops comes as Ukraine steels itself for a long war. The country’s situation has become more precarious after a major counteroffensive stalled, European Union nations fell short on their pledge for artillery shells and Congress has wavered on President Biden’s promise of more aid.
At the same time, Russia, a bigger and more powerful enemy, has regained its balance after early setbacks. Its economy has been resilient in the face of sanctions and shifted toward a wartime footing, and its military has received weapons from Iran and North Korea.
The Kremlin, drawing on a population more than three times the size of Ukraine’s, has called up additional troops twice since the invasion. Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin directed the military to add nearly 170,000, bringing the total number of Russian troops to about 1.32 million.
In a grinding war of attrition, Ukrainians worry that time is on Putin’s side.
“Honestly, we need more soldiers. The professional military personnel are running out,” said Dolphin, a 68th Brigade assault team leader discussing the dire state of affairs at a command post in eastern Ukraine last month. He can only be identified by his call sign in keeping with Ukrainian military protocol. He said too many civilians seem content to leave the fighting to “professional” soldiers like him.
Defense Minister Rustem Umerov recently told a European security forum that Ukraine has 1 million people in military service, including 800,000 in the armed forces. But the toll has been staggering, with U.S. security officials estimating much earlier this year that Ukraine has suffered more that 124,500 casualties, including more than 15,500 killed in action.
Ukrainians remain united in what many consider a battle for survival, and tens of thousands willingly show up at recruitment centers to enlist, often aware of the horrifying accounts of how life has changed in Russia-held territory. But interviews with draft-age Ukrainians suggest that many are less than eager to fight for a military and national government that is viewed as rife with corruption and incompetence.
At Kyiv’s University subway stop, Maksim, a 20-year-old resident of Kyiv who spoke on the condition that his last name not be used to discuss sensitive issues, said he expects that he will probably serve after he completes university studies in engineering.
But he’s not eager to risk his life in the military, given stories he has heard from friends in the ranks about insufficient training and endemic corruption, such as paying bribes to officers to receive vacation leave
“It’s an extremely difficult topic,” said Andriy Zagorodnyuk, a former Ukrainian defense minister. He said the current form of mobilization came together on an emergency basis at the start of the war. Now the government must adjust to meet the military’s immediate and long-term needs while ensuring that the burden is more fairly shared by all.
“This system has loopholes and some people do use these loopholes,” Zagorodnyuk said. The BBC, citing an analysis based on Eurostat data, said that 650,000 conscription-age men have left Ukraine.
Some men — a small minority, government officials say — dodge the draft by breaking the law. In August, Zelensky fired all heads of regional recruitment commissions amid allegations of widespread corruption.
One draft-age Ukrainian, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he has been breaking the law, said he went through three intermediaries to bribe officials for documents saying that he is serving with the Ukrainian military, even though he has been living and working in Kyiv.
Others rely on forged documents to sneak out of the country, including “white papers” claiming medical disabilities. People pay professional traffickers to prepare phony documents, while others create them themselves.
Others have tried bribing border guards — at least 825 times to the tune of about $228,000, a Border Guard spokesman said — or attempted to pass through checkpoints as stowaways. One Ukrainian draft-age man, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he has evaded service, said the going rate for bribing a guard on the Moldovan border is $300.
The State Border Guard Service has stopped more than 16,500 conscription-age men from leaving the country illegally since February 2022, usually on their way to Moldova or Romania, said Demchenko, the spokesman. He said that about 7,000 of them have been caught using forged documents while trying to cross the border, usually into Poland. Nearly 2,500 have been caught this year.
The Lviv region is one of the nation’s busiest corridors for people trying to leave the country illegally, owing to its long border with Poland.
A Lviv freight company employee helped more than 50 men flee Ukraine by registering them as truckers. The employee with Smart Way Logistics — who wasn’t identified in court papers filed in June with the Zhokviv District Court — slipped the first one over the border in April 2022. By November 2022, his busiest month, he had helped 13 bogus truckers into Poland. He faced as many as 12 years in prison for each instance but, because he showed remorse and assisted in closing the case, received a seven-year suspended sentence and probation instead.
Through the ‘green areas’
Still other draft-age men cross the Ukraine border in “green areas” such as those in the mountains and forests. One young Ukrainian man posted an Instagram video of his flight through such an area, including the moment he kissed a tree to celebrate crossing the border.
In texts with The Washington Post, he said he and his companion — whom he described as a deserter from active-duty service — crossed the frontier without a guide. He said he left because he thinks that wartime Ukraine has become as repressive as Russia, and that out of desperation for fighters, men were practically being snatched off the streets.
“Even if you’re missing a leg, they’ll say you can still fly drones,” he said. He, too, complained about corruption, saying that ordinary Ukrainians are fighting and dying while “members of parliament” and other elites cruise around in Mercedes and other fancy cars.
Guides can be found on social media sites such as Telegram, where the fee starts at $1,200 and up. Besides knowing the terrain, some guides use night-vision goggles and spend time observing Border Guard patrols to learn their habits and vulnerabilities, said Lesia Fedorova, a Border Guard spokeswoman in the detachment near the Romanian border.
On a recent tour of the border near here, a patrol stood on the bank of the Tysa River, about 600 feet downstream from a common crossing spot, as the frigid water churned swiftly past. Not long ago, officials said, the service caught two men trying to cross another part of the river wearing flotation devices like a child might use in a swimming pool.
Nearby, another patrol, dressed in white camouflage over their green fatigues and carrying Kalashnikov rifles or 9mm handguns, trekked to the snowy mountaintop overlooking Romania in about 90 minutes. A barbed-wire fence stretched out from both sides of a rickety cattle gate.
Before the war, the Border Patrol in this sector spent most of its time trying to stop tobacco smugglers and migrants from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Turkey and other countries from illegally entering Ukraine, sometimes crossing the border with the help of professional smugglers, Fedorova said.
After Russia invaded, the flow changed course, with about 50 people crossing illegally per day over the mountain or through checkpoints. Now it’s down to about eight people a day, she said.
Before turning back, the patrol left a sign made of twigs to indicate to other patrols their identity and when they had been there. As they leave, they also brush away their tracks so that the any new prints made by deserters will be clear.
