The many modern ways of dodging the draft give a pacifist new hope

As a career pacifist, I’m greatly inspired by the various ways Russian men and women aged 18 to 50 have found to skip their national duty to fight in the war against Ukraine.

When Vladimir Putin announced the partial call-up of civilians, Google searches by Russians for ways to break one’s own arm shot up.

Now, this wouldn’t have been my go-to as a solution to avoid the carnage. Self-inflicted arm breakage as a way to avoid violence seems to make no sense.

Yet it’s clearly a favourite among the conscientious objectors of today, and you can’t deny that presenting yourself to the recruitment office with a shattered forearm or a shoulder smashed to a pulp would give the officer in charge food for thought. It most definitely beats pointing to your flat feet as your two best reasons not to go forth and kill people as was the case, I’ve heard, in World War 2.

Modern medicine seems to have caught up with young people trying to get out of going to war, and my suspicion is that army generals have got wind of Green Cross shoe inners and are handing them out to anyone complaining about their flat feet. So now you can show up with your arm in a sling made of your bed sheet and get out of mass killing that way, all thanks to Google and the many ways you can incapacitate yourself.

The other fairly clever way Russia’s fit and healthy manage to get out of the war is by fleeing to neighbouring countries. Airbnb’s global footprint makes this a really feasible way to skip the war.

These days, hosts in Mongolia and Kazakhstan – and even in Ukraine itself – can offer accommodation to the sons and daughters of the aggressor up north, at a fair rate and with few questions asked.

Now where in the world in 1944 would civilians have opened their homes to the enemy, setting out welcome drinks in the foyer? With an Airbnb you also have the option of a long-term stay, which is ideal because the war seems as if it could drag on for a bit.

Should the email go out that the South African government is looking for citizens to join the war in Ukraine, Airbnb options in Mozambique would be my first Google search (with how to break my arm probably a distant second).

The third and probably most modern way young Russians are indicating they’re not ready to murder en masse might very well be Googling “the army”, dialling the number they find and saying “I just can’t” before hanging up.

For anyone 50 and younger, saying “I just can’t” is the way to get out of anything, all the while showing your absolute disgust with whatever is being asked of you or simply whatever it is you don’t like the look or the sound of.

“I just can’t, officer” might be the way some phrase it, while others might say “Tell Vladimir I just can’t” and trust the person on the other side will visualise them throwing their hands up and walking away, with their unbroken arms and athletic feet, and going back to following the war on TikTok from the comfort of their homes.