Article in The Guardian from June 29 made a lot of noise in the info field. The publication presents the stories of men who evade the draft. It is difficult to overestimate the scale of the social problem. The situation has become much more complicated after the adoption of the law on mobilization in May of this year: men are more careful to avoid meeting with representatives of the TCC, and many are looking for illegal ways to leave the country.
The rhetoric about the need to rotate military personnel involved in military operations since the first months of the war is due to the fact that our defenders are exhausted, many are wounded or killed. Even the elementary notion of social justice requires rotation. A paradoxical situation is created when the population of the country massively supports the guys of the Armed Forces, but does not seek to take their place.
I am not made for war, or The anticipation of death is worse than death itself
31-year-old Dmytro, a photographer from Kharkiv, who shared his story with a well-known publication, has already become a proverb in tongues. His enforced seclusion is typical of many dodgers today. He is afraid to leave the house, tries to minimize his stay in public places. And admits that he wants to leave the country.
“I am not created for war” – it would seem that what could be more natural than such an argument? In peacetime, during conscription, he could sound convincing and weighty. “I can’t kill people, not even Russians, I can’t last long. I want to start a family, see the world. I’m not ready to die,” – very typical rhetoric for dodgers.
Squid Game, or Welcome to the Matrix
More than twenty thousand men of conscription age left Ukraine to avoid conscription, despite the official ban. The same Dmytro admits that he had never thought about emigrating before – before the adoption of the law on mobilization – but now he has no choice.
The statistics of people who died in the Tisza while trying to cross the border between Ukraine and Romania are updated time and time again. From time to time, anecdotal situations arise about defectors who change into women’s clothes or hide in the trunk of a car while crossing the border.
Who cares about war, who cares about his mother
While military personnel protect the country, the so-called “moderators” find a way to make money. Demand creates supply. New stalkers inflate the prices for their services. The price tag for the safe movement of the evader across the border has already exceeded 8,000 euros. It is noteworthy that Dmytro doubts the reliability of such intermediaries, but is forced to trust them, as he sees no other way out of the current situation.
Another character presented in the publication of The Guardian – a 23-year-old citizen from Odesa – said that he was offered to cross the Moldovan border with a fake passport or to pretend to be an artist. He was detained while trying to escape. He paid off, spent money and nerves and returned to the starting position with a feeling of helplessness.
A separate case of the argument why a person cannot become a military serviceman is the presence of relatives in the occupied regions. The latter, in the opinion of a caring relative-evader, can become hostages of the occupying power, if it finds out about their family connection, which compromises them.
Execution cannot be pardoned
The dialectic of the situation: on the one hand, draft evasion endangers the country’s military efforts, but on the other hand, a democratic state must respect the rights of its citizens. Will the unwieldy state machine be able to find a balance in this dialectical chaos?
Mass evasion is a litmus that revealed a lot of socio-economic and cultural problems. Yuriy Mohylyov, a sapper who volunteered to go to the front in early 2023, reasonably notes: “In order for there to be no evaders, the government must create normal living conditions in this country. Why are there many people over 40 in the army? Because we love We do not divide the motherland from the country, but the youth divides it. They do not understand that if they do not go to learn to fight, they will have to learn to live in the occupation.”
Prisoner’s Dilemma, or A system is only as weak as its weakest link
The so-called “prisoner’s dilemma” in game theory explains many strategies of human interaction. In short, regardless of the other person’s behavior, each communicator gains more by cheating. Since it is purely utilitarian in any situation to betray than to cooperate, all rational players choose betrayal.
If this scheme is applied to a situation of mass evasion, meaning that the first player is the military and the second is the evader, the result can be a global social upheaval and a split in society. The betrayal of the second player is already quite obvious. It’s scary to imagine what will happen if the first betrays…
Tatyana Morarash
