Nearly 20,000 men have fled Ukraine since the beginning of the war to avoid the draft, the BBC has discovered.
Some have swum dangerous rivers to leave the country. Others have simply walked out under cover of darkness.
Another 21,113 men attempted to flee but were caught by the Ukrainian authorities, Kiev confirmed.
After Russia’s invasion, most men aged 18-60 were banned from leaving, but in practice many make it out daily.
The BBC has established, by requesting data of illegal border crossings from neighbouring Romania, Moldova, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia, that 19,740 men illegally crossed into these countries between February 2022 and 31 August 2023. The majority of those caught trying (14,313) were attempting to walk or swim across the border, and the remaining 6,800 relied on fraudulently obtained official paperwork stating fake exemptions such as fabricated illnesses, the Ukrainian authorities said.
Those who are excluded from conscription include men with medical issues, those with caring responsibilities, and fathers to three or more children.
In August, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called out the „corrupt decisions” made by the country’s medical military commissions, which he said had resulted in a ten-fold increase in exemptions since February 2022. He announced that all regional officials in charge of military conscription had been removed, and more than 30 people faced criminal charges.
The 40,000-plus number of men who have fled, or tried to flee, could represent a significant proportion of the men Ukraine needs to replenish its army. In August, US officials estimated the Ukrainian military death toll to be up to 70,000 – although Kiev refuses to provide an exact figure.The country also does not release official figures on the size of its army. But the new Defence Minister, Rustem Umerov, told the Yalta European Strategy forum in September that there are more than 800,000 in the Ukrainian armed forces.
One video shows a man swimming across the Dniester River towards Moldova, with Moldovan border guards urging him across to safety. Another shows the potentially fatal consequences – bodies of men being pulled ashore, having drowned trying to cross the Tisa River between Ukraine and Romania.
But Yevgeny, a construction worker from Kyiv who we met in a Moldovan immigration centre, said he simply walked across that country’s border – the most popular route out, our figures suggest. It is then relatively straightforward for escapees of the war to claim asylum. After being processed by the Moldovan police, Yevgeny applied for asylum – something that must be done within 24 hours of entering the country to avoid a criminal record.
Erik, a 26-year-old musician from Kharkiv, says he crossed over to Moldova by walking across the plains of Moldova’s breakaway Transnistria region and then swimming across a river. Following complex abdominal surgery for peritonitis when he was younger, Erik says he needs to follow a special diet which precludes him from serving in the army. But he says when war broke out it proved impossible to get a medical exemption certificate. Erik eventually made it to the US, where he was reunited with his wife and their four-year-old daughter.
Another man, who the BBC called Vlad, managed to get hold of a valid exemption, but says he could then not get the border guards to take it seriously. He says he had been accepted on a foreign university course, and had been granted a student permit to leave Ukraine, but soon realised that this was not going to suffice.
„I thought it didn’t work out because I got a tricky checkpoint. I went to another one, and another one. They laughed at me and sent me home. I realised that this piece of paper – this ‘permission’ – is pointless for a border officer, they don’t care at all.”
Vlad left the country by swimming across the Tisa River into Romania. He reached the Ukrainian side of the border with the help of a friend.
Telegram is a popular platform for smugglers to advertise their services, such as organizing crossings of the Tisa. An undercover BBC reporter working for our investigation spent a month corresponding with smugglers, posing as a Ukrainian keen to leave the country.He discovered at least six Telegram groups – with membership ranging from 100 to several thousand people. He says they offered a range of services, from adding pretend children to his family, to the most expensive option – the medical exemption certificate, known as the „white ticket” which would allow him to leave and return to Ukraine whenever he liked.
He was told it would take up to a week to make, and would cost him about $4,300 (£3,472). The price included a bribe to the official making the ticket.
The Ukrainian government tends to eradicate these groups through a newly improved digitized system. Those who are caught by the Ukrainian authorities risk a fine of $92-230, and a prison sentence of up to eight years.
It isn’t clear whether those who flee and choose to return to Ukraine in the future might also face retrospective punishment, though it has been suggested against.
