Romanian Global News
June 26, 2024
The Ukrainian security forces prevented 100 men fit for mobilization to leave the country illegally, in the Odesa region, near the border with Romania and the Republic of Moldova, the DPA and EFE agencies report on Tuesday, reports Agerpres, taken over by Romanian Global News .
Last Friday, 47 men in four minibuses were stopped on their way to the border. Another 53 men were stopped as they made their way to a meeting point at the border, bypassing checkpoints on foot. All of them are over 25 years old, so they can be subject to mobilization and they were forbidden to leave the country.
They paid the traffickers who were going to facilitate their clandestine crossing of the border between 5,000 and 18,500 dollars each, an amount negotiated depending on the economic possibilities of each one. They were all arrested, including a policeman who organized their border crossing, and risk up to 9 years in prison. The traffickers offered their services in posts on social networks.
According to the Ukrainian authorities, dozens of men try to flee the country every day
Due to the heavy losses in the war with Russia, a stricter record of Ukrainian men fit for mobilization has been applied since May.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky then enacted more controversial laws to make it easier to recruit new soldiers, increasing penalties for those who evade conscription, and lowering the age of enlistment from 27 to 25.
Many young Ukrainians thus fear that they could be sent to the front, at a time when the advance of Russian troops, the insufficiency of ammunition for the Ukrainian army and the losses among it feed the concern of the population.
Therefore, there are more and more reports about attempts to flee the country and actions of forced recruitment in which the recruiting officers even resort to brutal methods. Thus, numerous amateur video images of Ukrainian men forcibly taken from the street by recruitment officers were posted on social networks, actions that sometimes lead to violence.
Among previous attempts to cross the border thwarted by Ukrainian authorities, 38 men were arrested in February while trying to cross the border illegally into Hungary after paying smugglers between $4,500 and $8,500 each, high sums compared to wages in Ukraine.
President Zelenski last year dismissed all the commanders of the country’s military commissariats in order to eliminate a vast corrupt system through which enlisted men evade mobilization by offering bribes.
Other Ukrainian men seek to escape mobilization by fleeing the country and thus risking their lives to cross the border by crossing mountains and rivers. Starting in 2022, Ukrainian border guards discovered the bodies of 35 people who had tried to cross the Tisa River, on the border with Romania and Hungary.
Newsessentials Blog 
Posted on June 26, 2024
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