They Run, and Swim, to Avoid War
WESTERN UKRAINE — The roiling water can be treacherous, the banks are steep and slick with mud, and the riverbed is covered in jagged, hidden boulders.
Yet Ukrainian border guards often find their quarry — men seeking to escape the military draft — swimming in these conditions, trying to cross the Tysa River where it forms the border with Romania.
Lieutenant Vladyslav Tonkoshtan recently detained a man on the bank, where he was preparing to cross the river in the hope of reuniting with his wife and children, whom he had not seen in two years since they had fled to another country in Europe.
That thousands of Ukrainian men have chosen to risk the swim rather than face the dangers as soldiers highlights the challenge for President Volodymyr Zelensky as he seeks to mobilize new troops after more than two years of bruising trench warfare with Russia.
“We cannot judge these people,” Lieutenant Tonkoshtan said. “But if all men leave, who will defend Ukraine?”
With Russia having seized the initiative on the battlefield in recent months, Ukraine’s ability to defend itself hinges on replenishing its arsenal and mobilizing troops at home.
But getting more men to enlist has been difficult and politically fraught. On April 11, Ukraine’s Parliament passed a law to expand the draft by eliminating some medical and other exemptions, increasing soldier pay and stiffening penalties for draft dodging. Mr. Zelensky separately signed a law lowering the draft age, to 25 from 27.
Ukraine’s shortage of soldiers has become acute, generals say. In a speech in Parliament on April 11, the commander of Ukrainian forces in the east, General Yurii Sodol, said Russians in certain sections of the front outnumber Ukrainians by more than seven to one.
Many Ukrainians who volunteered in the first days of the war have fought continually since, with only two weeks of leave a year. With casualties high, being drafted, soldiers say, is like getting a one-way ticket to the front.
As Ukraine’s battlefield prospects have sagged, draft dodging has been on the rise. In western Ukraine, men have been crossing into other European countries, where they seek refugee status.
The Romanian authorities say more than 6,000 men have turned up on their side of the Tysa River since Russia’s invasion.
Not everyone makes it. The bodies of 22 men have washed up on both banks, said Lieutenant Lesya Fedorova, a spokeswoman for the Mukachevo border guard unit.
More have most likely drowned, officials say, though their bodies have never been found. The fatalities have earned the river a grim nickname, Death River.
Men also cross the border on mountain paths or try to exit through border crossing points with fake documents.
The exodus has shifted the nature of smuggling in Ukraine’s Carpathian Mountains, which border four European Union countries: Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania. Smuggling that once focused on counterfeit cigarettes has pivoted to the business of guiding draft dodgers, border guards and local officials say.
Border guards say they detain men trying to cross the border illegally and cannot specify whether a man was dodging the draft, a determination that is left to a court. But the trend of men crossing is clear.
Last year, the Mukachevo Border Guard Detachment broke up 56 gangs helping Ukrainian men illegally leave the country, Lieutenant Fedorova said. Prices for help crossing the border, she said, have risen to as much as $10,000 today from $2,000 per person soon after the invasion.
On the banks of the Tysa River at night, when most crossings are attempted, the speed of the current and breadth of the river are harder to gauge, border guards say. Last year, the guards published videos online of rescues and recoveries of bodies to discourage men from risking the swim.
“They see the river as their chance to live because so many soldiers die on the front line,” Lieutenant Fedorova said.