In west Ukraine, draft dodgers run, swim to avoid war
Thousands have tried crossing river to Romania
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 hazardous 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 fled to another country in Europe.
That thousands of Ukrainian men have chosen to risk the swim rather than face the dangers as soldiers on the eastern front highlights the challenge for President Volodymyr Zelensky as he seeks to mobilize new troops after more than two years of bruising, bloody trench warfare with Russia.
“We cannot judge these people,” 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 of weaponry, a matter largely up to allies, and mobilizing troops at home.
But getting more men to enlist has been particularly difficult and politically fraught. After months of delays and debate, Ukraine’s parliament on Thursday passed a law to expand the draft by eliminating some medical and other exemptions, increasing soldier pay and stiffening penalties for draft dodging. 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 Thursday, the commander of Ukrainian forces in the east, General Yurii Sodol, said Russians in certain sections of the front outnumber Ukrainians by more than 7-1.
It was among the first public assessments of the balance of forces in the east by a senior Ukrainian military commander. Ukraine, Sodol told members of parliament, requires one soldier for every 10 yards of trench work stretching along the 600-mile front.
Many Ukrainians who rushed to volunteer in the first days of the war have fought continually since, with only two weeks of leave once a year. Soldiers are enlisted until the end of hostilities, with no defined date for release from their obligation to serve. With casualty rates 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 the hills and river valleys of western Ukraine’s border regions, men from elsewhere in the country have been seeking to avoid enlistment by crossing into European countries, where they seek refugee status.
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 spokesperson 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, though it is hundreds of miles from the violence along the front.
Men also slip across the border on mountain paths or try to exit through border crossing points with counterfeit 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 revolved around counterfeit cigarettes has pivoted almost completely 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 in any particular case 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 criminal gangs helping Ukrainian men illegally leave the country during wartime, 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. Smuggling a backpack of cigarettes, in contrast, pays as little as $200.
Checkpoints have gone up on highways near the border, where cars are checked for men who might be trying to leave the country. And along the border, guards have put up additional infrared cameras and sensors triggered by footsteps, Fedorova said.