Ukrainian civilians resist fighting on the front lines

“Those who wanted to enlist have already done so and the rest are doing everything possible not to go to the army.” These are the words of Vitali, 37 years old and a real estate agent in kyiv. Like many of those interviewed for this article, he prefers not to identify himself with his last name. Vitali spoke to EL PAÍS on April 10, one day before the Rada (Ukrainian Parliament) approved the new law on the mobilization of civilians that should serve to incorporate nearly 400,000 new soldiers into the army. Vitali confirmed that the law is necessary to resist the Russian offensive but, like many others, he prefers not to enlist, arguing that the regulations are unclear and he could end up in a position for which he is not prepared, that is, on the front line of the forehead.

Nearly half a million men and women volunteered to defend the country in the first year of the Russian invasion, in 2022. It was a time when the army even had to reject applications because it could not materially take on so many recruits. “In my environment, 80% wanted to fight when the war broke out, now I would tell you that it is 20%,” Vitali assessed during a break from his work, sunbathing in some gardens in the center of the Ukrainian capital. A survey last February by the demographic research company Info Sapiens estimated that 35% of men of draft age – from 25 to 60 years old – are willing to join the ranks.

There are many ways to avoid summons to appear at the recruiting office. A common one is residing in a different home than the one you are registered with. The Government wants to eliminate this possibility by introducing an electronic identification system with the new law, not only by physical address or identifying civilians on the street: calls can now be made by email or mobile phone. Another measure is aimed at men of mobilized age who have left the country. Men who do not report their address abroad will be denied consular services and, more specifically, any processing related to the passport.

More men flee abroad

The most visible figure regarding the refusal to go to war is precisely the number of men who have left the country since 2022: if at that time they represented 14% of those registered as refugees in the EU, now they are 34%, according to the European Statistical Office (Eurostat). 20% are adults of fighting age, that is, 850,000 men, 48% more than in December 2022, according to Eurostat. These data do not include people who have not taken advantage of protection programs or Ukrainians who have fled to non-EU states such as the United Kingdom. In this country, 39,000 Ukrainians of enlistment age were residing as refugees at the end of 2023, according to the British Government, 50% more than in December 2022.

Martial law prevents adult men up to the age of 65 from leaving Ukraine, although there are exceptions, for example, if the person is exempt from military service or is the father of three children. The BBC claimed last November that at least 20,000 people had illegally left Ukraine. EL PAÍS is aware of the case of two young people who that month crossed the border with Moldova along forest paths. They paid 5,000 euros to the guide.

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The number of men who enter the European Union with legal documents that exempt them from military service, purchased fraudulently, is higher. At the beginning of April, this newspaper reported two testimonies of this: a 32-year-old young man paid a doctor from the recruitment offices to diagnose him that he suffers from severe asthma. His goal is to travel to Poland. Another case is that of a 60-year-old man who paid to be diagnosed with a disability that exempts him from being incorporated into the ranks. The next thing was to register him as a dependent person of his son, not his wife. Guardians of dependent people are also left out of the mobilization. Both left Ukraine in March.

The level of corruption is so high that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky relieved all provincial heads of recruitment offices in August 2023. Last week, the president also signed a rule to repeat medical tests in certain cases that, due to physical problems, exempt someone from taking up arms.

Maxim is 26 years old and has a coffee in a trendy cafe in the center of kyiv. He reads a Czech language manual, says that he wants to learn the language for a tourist trip that he plans to take when the war ends. The age to be mobilized was changed last week from 27 to 25 years old, and he knows that sooner or later he will be called: “Selfishly, I don't want to leave my comfort zone, but I am aware that my country is fighting a war for its existence.” Maxim believes that the mobilization law has been delayed too long due to its unpopularity, and believes that the regulation is unclear and generates distrust: “Civilians are afraid because perhaps it is true that they send you to the wrong positions and that you receive shitty orders to fight without being prepared.” Maxim works in the media and hoped that the press would be considered by parliament as a strategic sector, exempt from recruitment, but this has not been the case.

“The social reaction to the mobilization law is very complex because many people consider it unfair and believe that there are people who benefit more than others,” says Andrii Bychenko, director of sociological studies at the Razumkov Center. "There are people who, out of fear, do not want to go to combat and others who would be willing, but are not sure if they will be assigned to the appropriate functions."

There is another issue that affects, and that is the growing pessimism of Ukrainian society regarding the outcome of the war. A poll by the Razumkov Center presented on Wednesday indicated that 59% of citizens believe that Russia can be defeated. In August 2022, the percentage was 76.9%. Mikola Bielieskov, an analyst at the National Institute for Strategic Studies (an organization dependent on the Ukrainian presidency), asked at a conference on March 22 in kyiv "why it is so difficult to convince civilians to be mobilized." Bielieskov admitted that the situation is worrying because it is a fish eating its own tail: the less arms support Ukraine receives on an international scale, as is happening, the less capacity the Ukrainian army will have to fight properly and, therefore, the fewer people will be interested in enlisting. And the less willingness there is in Ukrainian society to defend their country on the front, Bielieskov specified, the more doubts the allies will have about supporting Ukraine.

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