20,000 Military Age Ukrainian Men Fled Abroad to Avoid Conscription, Another 20,000 Caught at Border

Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, UKRAINE - MAY 09: Ukrainian infantrymen train on May 09, 2022 near
John Moore/Getty Images
Oliver JJ Lane

Huge numbers of young Ukrainian men fled the country to avoid being drafted in the army to fight Russia, a report states, with many swimming border rivers or walking cross-country to avoid detection.

Under Ukraine’s martial law, for the vast majority of Ukrainian males, it has been illegal to leave the country since the Russian invasion, a step taken by Kyiv to maintain its access to conscripts for the fight against Moscow’s occupation. Yet figures reveal tens of thousands have attempted to flee and avoid fighting.

Data from the border services of Hungary, Moldova, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia acquired for an investigation by British state broadcaster the BBC claims 19,740 men aged between 18 and 60 are known to have “illegally crossed” into their territories from Ukraine since the start of Russia’s invasion last year. In addition to those that made it to a European neighbour, the Ukrainian government has claimed 21,113 people trying to flee Ukraine illegally have been caught during the war.

In all, the figures from Ukraine and its Western neighbours amount to some 40,853 Ukrainians who are known to have at least attempted to escape conscription and the war, a number of men equivalent to an entire medium-sized European army such as that of Romania or Hungary.

According to the BBC report, getting out of Ukraine saw many walk across the land border to Moldova, and others swim across Ukraine’s border rivers. In some cases, those who attempted to swim out of Ukraine drowned, it was noted. It was reported last year that others had frozen to death while trying to cross the Carpathian mountains to Romania.

In some cases, Ukrainians were said to have escaped the country with the assistance of what may be termed professional people smugglers charging a hefty fee.

The Ukrainian government, for their part, denied the number of draft dodgers was a problem for them, with a spokesman saying “Those who try to avoid mobilisation are about 1-5%. They are definitely not critical to the defence of Ukraine.”

One escapee who spoke to the broadcaster compared Ukraine’s policy of conscription and closed borders to Russia. He said: “Not everyone is a warrior… you don’t need to keep the whole country locked up. You can’t lump everyone together like they did in the Soviet Union.”

A further dimension in the number of Ukrainian military-aged males who have gone abroad illegally since the start of the war is the number who made it out undetected. There are two further Ukraine-bordering nations not included in the BBC count, Russia itself and its satellite state Belarus. While it is not known how many Ukrainian citizens have gone into Russian territory since the war began, either by their own choice or at the barrel of a gun from occupied areas, it is questionable whether anyone avoided the draft heading East would have been any better off.

Another factor is the number of Ukrainian males who entered those bordering European states undetected and undeclared.

Yet one of the largest uncounted factors, however, may be Ukrainians who crossed their own border with faked or illegally acquired paperwork. The number of military service exemption certificates issued soared with the onset of war, and this blossomed into a major national scandal for Kyiv, which must appear to be fighting corruption to keep its Western allies onboard, yet was facing large numbers of medical exemption papers being issued for cash.

President Zelensky came down hard on the recruiting officers issuing these papers earlier this year, dismissing every single regional recruitment office head in the country and arresting dozens. As reported in August, medical certificates could be had for $6,000, and some officials were accused of having taken millions of dollars in bribes. At that time, 6,100 people had been arrested trying to cross the border out of Ukraine using fake papers.

Zelesnky said at the time of the arrests that the practices of some had been “revolting” and “cynical”.

Ukraine is not alone in experiencing outward flows of citizens attempting to escape conscription. Western and Central Asian nations have also seen arrivals of Russians claiming refugee status to avoid military service, and Canada has conferred official asylum status on Russians escaping conscription.

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