Conscription Has Become a Nightmare
We currently live like hermits. We have to order our food and water, and tip the delivery guys generously too, to make sure they won't rat us out to the recruiters. We have to pretend that no one lives here at all. Today we ordered water, and suddenly heard that screech sound police cars make when they turn on the siren for a split second only. I looked out the window and they were trying to recruit our water delivery guy. We stayed on the side of caution and turned off the lights, phones, doorbell, and pretended we weren't home. It's unlikely that the police would use the delivery guy to recruit my husband, but it does happen, and we can't afford to take any chances.
The police and military is working harder than ever to draft every last man of age, left in the country. They run after people in the streets, surround buildings to catch any men who step outside for a breath of fresh air, and recruit psychically sick and severely mentally ill people. When the sick people die in the busses on the way to the barracks, they claim these deaths are all caused by epilepsy. When the recruiters kill people, they claim that the people committed suicide. The recruiters attack and beat up civilians every day, and the civilians have now begun to shoot the recruiters.
Many of the people who get recruited, die within the first 3 months. It goes without saying that the large majority of people who get recruited, die eventually, given that Ukraine is vastly outnumbered in terms of both people and military equipment.
My husband's alcoholic uncle willingly enlisted into the army a while ago, as he felt he had no more reason to live. A month later he was transferred somewhere, and no one has heard from him since. He didn't receive any military training in the barracks, but they at least fed him. When people are sent to the front lines, they are told to blindly shoot and duck from time to time. It is not a heroic mission like in a movie, it is a pointless game of Russian roulette.
Ukraine is not a piece of land, Ukraine is the people and traditions. Men should be helping their wives and children escape the country, instead of fighting recruiters of their own nationality. Ukraine will not exist without Ukrainians.
My husband has been lucky to have family members who were able to help him avoid recruitment throughout his life. His grandmother was a respected pediatrician, with many friends in the medical field. She bribed a doctor to write that my husband was ineligible for military service, when he was still a child. My husband later became a student in university, and in those times, the military could not recruit students. When he finished his degree in university, his non-alcoholic uncle managed to bribe an official in the military office, to not investigate him. In despite of the papers he got through his grandmother, the military could have told him to get re-evaluated, so this was a necessary step to protect my husband. Ukraine has been at war with Russia since my husband was 22 years old.
Students who don't go through military training now, will be expelled. Going through with the training means that they can find and recruit them as soon as they come of age, and manipulate them to willingly join the military as soon as they turn 18. They promise these 18 year old boys a lot of money, a completely free mortgage on a large house, and lifelong free healthcare and education. I don't believe all this money exists, it is clear that they expect the majority of them to die.
I for one believe that every child deserves an equal chance at life, no matter what country they were born in, and by extension that every man has a right to protect his own life, without shame. We are not machines, we are human beings with loved ones and future dreams. It is no person's duty to give up the only life they will ever have.
My husband and I are safe here, as this part of the country is not under attack, but our future is bleak. It is my hope that they will let men escape the country if the war stops for a while, but even then it is not guaranteed. It is not known how long this war will last, but it is known for certain that even when it stops, it does not end. This war first ends when all the land that once belonged to Ukraine, becomes a part of Russia. I moved to Ukraine in 2018, to be with my husband. We never imagined that we'd get trapped here like this. They may never let my husband come back home with me to Denmark. I fear there might come a day when I will to leave him here. When Russia stood on the boarders, we talked about leaving Ukraine. My husband found it difficult to believe that this future would truly come to pass, but I was convinced. I remember our conversation as if it happened on a different timeline, and sometimes I almost feel like it is possible to simply go back and persuade him to leave with me.
I will never lose hope in a future with my husband by my side, outside of Ukraine. I want to sit with him in the evening sun, on a cafe without recruiters around the corner, and drink wine. I want to plant rose and berry bushes with him in a garden that is that our own, and watch them grow, knowing we will never have to move again. I write down and express my fears at times, but I don't allow them to take over my mind or life. I have to believe that everything will work out in the end.
The police and military is working harder than ever to draft every last man of age, left in the country. They run after people in the streets, surround buildings to catch any men who step outside for a breath of fresh air, and recruit psychically sick and severely mentally ill people. When the sick people die in the busses on the way to the barracks, they claim these deaths are all caused by epilepsy. When the recruiters kill people, they claim that the people committed suicide. The recruiters attack and beat up civilians every day, and the civilians have now begun to shoot the recruiters.
Many of the people who get recruited, die within the first 3 months. It goes without saying that the large majority of people who get recruited, die eventually, given that Ukraine is vastly outnumbered in terms of both people and military equipment.
My husband's alcoholic uncle willingly enlisted into the army a while ago, as he felt he had no more reason to live. A month later he was transferred somewhere, and no one has heard from him since. He didn't receive any military training in the barracks, but they at least fed him. When people are sent to the front lines, they are told to blindly shoot and duck from time to time. It is not a heroic mission like in a movie, it is a pointless game of Russian roulette.
Ukraine is not a piece of land, Ukraine is the people and traditions. Men should be helping their wives and children escape the country, instead of fighting recruiters of their own nationality. Ukraine will not exist without Ukrainians.
My husband has been lucky to have family members who were able to help him avoid recruitment throughout his life. His grandmother was a respected pediatrician, with many friends in the medical field. She bribed a doctor to write that my husband was ineligible for military service, when he was still a child. My husband later became a student in university, and in those times, the military could not recruit students. When he finished his degree in university, his non-alcoholic uncle managed to bribe an official in the military office, to not investigate him. In despite of the papers he got through his grandmother, the military could have told him to get re-evaluated, so this was a necessary step to protect my husband. Ukraine has been at war with Russia since my husband was 22 years old.
Students who don't go through military training now, will be expelled. Going through with the training means that they can find and recruit them as soon as they come of age, and manipulate them to willingly join the military as soon as they turn 18. They promise these 18 year old boys a lot of money, a completely free mortgage on a large house, and lifelong free healthcare and education. I don't believe all this money exists, it is clear that they expect the majority of them to die.
I for one believe that every child deserves an equal chance at life, no matter what country they were born in, and by extension that every man has a right to protect his own life, without shame. We are not machines, we are human beings with loved ones and future dreams. It is no person's duty to give up the only life they will ever have.
My husband and I are safe here, as this part of the country is not under attack, but our future is bleak. It is my hope that they will let men escape the country if the war stops for a while, but even then it is not guaranteed. It is not known how long this war will last, but it is known for certain that even when it stops, it does not end. This war first ends when all the land that once belonged to Ukraine, becomes a part of Russia. I moved to Ukraine in 2018, to be with my husband. We never imagined that we'd get trapped here like this. They may never let my husband come back home with me to Denmark. I fear there might come a day when I will to leave him here. When Russia stood on the boarders, we talked about leaving Ukraine. My husband found it difficult to believe that this future would truly come to pass, but I was convinced. I remember our conversation as if it happened on a different timeline, and sometimes I almost feel like it is possible to simply go back and persuade him to leave with me.
I will never lose hope in a future with my husband by my side, outside of Ukraine. I want to sit with him in the evening sun, on a cafe without recruiters around the corner, and drink wine. I want to plant rose and berry bushes with him in a garden that is that our own, and watch them grow, knowing we will never have to move again. I write down and express my fears at times, but I don't allow them to take over my mind or life. I have to believe that everything will work out in the end.
