In some Ukrainian villages, there are hardly any men left due to mobilization – The Washington Post

In Ukraine, there are villages where hardly any men are left due to conscription.

The Washington Post reports from the village of Makiv in the Khmelnytskyi region.

“Those who remain fear they will be called up at any moment. Their neighbors are already hundreds of miles to the east in trenches on the front lines. Some have been killed or wounded. Several have disappeared. Other residents of this village—roughly 45 miles from the borders of Romania and Moldova—have fled across the border or found ways to avoid the war, either legally or by hiding,” the publication states.

These facts were confirmed to journalists by the local school, where they keep lists of students whose parents have left the village.

Local residents say that “military recruiters grab whoever they can” and “wander through nearly empty streets in search of remaining men.” A certain number of draftees from Makiv are currently serving time in prison for refusing to mobilize.

“People are being caught like dogs on the street,” said 35-year-old Olga Kametyuk, whose husband stopped to have coffee on the road near the village and was detained by territorial recruitment center employees.

“Despite having a diagnosis of osteochondrosis—a joint disease, he passed a medical examination in 10 minutes and was sent to the front, where he was injured,” the article says.

Sergey, a infantryman mobilized from Makiv, said upon returning home on leave that they wanted to take him away again from the street to the military enlistment office.

“When the military commissars realized that he was already serving, they asked him how he felt about people ‘who have never seen a day of war.’ Sergey replied that he was more indignant about them (the military commissars) than his fellow villagers.

“You’re a professional soldier, and I’m a civilian, but I’m fighting and you’re not,” he said.

Alexey, a 30-year-old resident of Makiv, was mobilized from the street while repairing his car. Upon returning from the front after several injuries and concussions, he said that out of a dozen of his comrades-in-arms, only two survived.

Sixteen-year-old Polina says her father was taken by military recruiters when he went to the local store. That’s why the remaining men in the village simply don’t leave their homes.