Ukrainians dodge draft through dangerous rivers and perilous mountains

 

“They see serving on the frontline in Eastern Ukraine as more of a death sentence than the risky option of fleeing across the river or over the mountains” Zelensky gets stricter on draft dodgers by lowering the mobilization-age and increasing penalties but some have taken the decision to "flee Ukraine rather than stay and fight" says George Grylls The Times' defense correspondent.

The People's Voice

18 hours ago

MP Says 800,000 Ukrainians Have Gone 'Underground' To Dodge Draft - The People's Voice

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04 Aug 2024

Ukraine: according to MP Dmytro Natalukha, there are 800 thousand draft evaders

These are people who went underground to avoid being drafted

In Ukraine there are around 800 thousand draft evaders. This is the estimate made by the chairman of the Economic Affairs Committee of the Ukrainian Parliament, Dmytro Natalukha, who spoke to the "Financial Times" newspaper. These are people who went underground to avoid enlistment, changing their residential address and finding illegal jobs so as to make themselves more difficult to trace.

Ukraine is already experiencing a significant shortage of men at the front and the situation forces the authorities in charge of mobilization to direct their attention towards companies in which the employees are officially employed and are physically present at the workplace. 

• However, a risk remains: that of bringing the national economy to its knees by taking manpower away from critical sectors, thus ending up also frustrating the military effort.

“You can mobilize a million people, but if you don't have the resources to equip them, you can't wage war. The armed forces would be left defenseless if the economy failed,” Natalukha warned. 

• Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of the country, Ukrainian companies have already lost on average between 10% and 20% of their workforce, both due to conscription and emigration abroad. 

The main national companies have put forward a proposal: that the companies pay a monthly tax of 20 thousand hryvnia (about 450 euros) per employee as a compensation for not recruiting them.

According to Natalukha, if the project were successful it would exempt around 895,000 Ukrainians from military service and would allow resources of 200 billion hryvnia (almost 4,5 billion euros) to be raised for the armed forces. 

Another bill being examined by the Kiev Parliament instead provides for excluding enlistment for those who earn salaries of more than 36.500 hryvnia (around 815 euros). 

Again according to the president of the parliamentary economic affairs commission, this would encourage the emergence of the black market, because the workers involved would declare their incomes and start paying taxes. However, detractors of the proposal highlight the potential unfairness of the measure.

Dmytro Natalukha (@DmytroNatalukha) ...

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Dmytro Natalukha – Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine

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Firstpost

How Ukraine's conscription squads are forcing men to fight in the war – Firstpost

RFE/RL

21 hours ago

Romania Says 11,000 Ukrainian Men Have Illegally Entered To Evade Draft

6 Aug, 2024 12:20
HomeRussia & FSU
800,000 Ukrainian men have gone ‘underground’ – MP
Fighting-age men have disengaged from the legal economy to evade conscription, the Financial Times has reported

RT

13 hours ago

FILE PHOTO: A blast furnace at a Ukrainian steel mill. ©  Diego Fedele / Getty Images

An estimated 800,000 Ukrainian men have gone “underground” due to the threat of military mobilization amid the conflict with Russia, a senior MP in Kiev, Dmitry Natalukha, has told the Financial Times. The lawmaker stated the case for economic-driven exemptions from the draft.

Kiev introduced a harsh new system for military conscription earlier this year, which was intended to discourage draft avoidance through the threat of serious punishment. One consequence was that businesses operating legally in Ukraine are now at a disadvantage compared to those in the ‘shadow economy,’ the FT explained. Draft-dodgers change their addresses and prefer to be paid in cash to stay under the radar, it added.

“We are working at the limit,” the HR director of a large steel mill told the newspaper, explaining the issues his company faces due to workforce shortages. The FT reported on Sunday how Ukrainian MPs plan to tackle the problem by revamping the system for draft exemptions.

Read more

 Ukrainian conscripts ‘don’t want to fight’ – Belgian state TV

One proposal penned by Natalukha, the chair of the Economic Development Committee, would allow businesses to shield up to 50% of their employees from mobilization by paying a fixed fee of about $490 per month. 

A competing bill would protect anyone with a wage over a threshold of $890, who are presumably of greater value to the war effort when contributing to the economy than they would be if sent to fight.

Natalukha told the FT that his proposal would keep around 895,000 men from military service and generate roughly $4.9 billion for Kiev’s war chest.

He previously argued in Ukrainian media that his bill is preferable to the alternative because it does not fuel the perception that only poor people who cannot bribe their way out of the draft have to fight. 

• Ukrainians collectively pay anywhere between $700 million and $2 billion per year for fraudulent ways to avoid mobilization, he estimates.

READ MORE: ‘God is with us’: WATCH new Russian Army recruitment video

• The current system allows the government to decide which agencies and businesses are essential for Ukraine and offer them partial or full immunity from mobilization. 
• An update last month, for instance, issued waivers to 100% of the employees of NGOs that receive foreign grants and are engaged in political activities.

Moscow perceives the conflict as a US-driven proxy war, in which Ukrainians serve as “cannon fodder” and are forced to fight by their Western-dependent government.

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