Volodymyr Zelensky's theatre of nightmares - New Statesman
“Around 700,000 Ukrainians liable for military service have crossed the border since the war began.”
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Andrey Kurkov writes from Kyiv on the toll of the long war in Ukraine. The government is mobilising another 500,000 soldiers. Last year’s counter-offensive failed. Volodymyr Zelensky and the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army, General Valery Zaluzhny, are said to be at loggerheads. What’s ahead? WL
This means that those who remain in the country will be asked to fight instead of those who left. Many firms and factories are now complaining about a shortage of employees. “There is no one to work in our printing house,” my Ukrainian publisher Olexander Krasovitsky said recently. “Almost everyone has been drafted into the army. This makes it almost impossible to plan a book release date right now.”
Some business owners hide their employees from military registration and enlistment offices and allow them to sleep at their workplace. This ploy may work in cities, but in rural areas, where communities are smaller, all those eligible for military service are in plain sight. There, hiding from military service is considered a shameful activity. For the most part the men don’t hide, and when they are given summonses, they obediently go. They are first taken to training camps, and then along bad, broken roads to the front line.
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