Men sleep in a makeshift dormitory, converted from a classroom, in a centre for internally displaced people in Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine, on Oct. 7, 2022. Many of the residents are from the Kherson region in the south of the country, where Ukrainian forces have recaptured 500 square kilometres in the past week.NICOLE TUNG/The New York Times News Service
In occupied regions of Ukraine, men living in fear have been hiding from Russian soldiers trying to force them into military service, and those anxieties have only grown since Vladimir Putin’s partial mobilization of the country’s reservists and subsequent annexation of the territories.
Ukrainian men in four occupied regions – Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson – were prevented from leaving after sham referendums that preceded the illegal annexations. Residents were forced to “vote” on joining Russia in the presence of armed men.
In the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic in eastern Ukraine, Russian-installed leaders declared a full military mobilization in February before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and many residents have been hiding ever since.
A 26-year-old man living in Donetsk said he rarely leaves his home, going only to his neighbour’s house and a nearby shop. The Globe and Mail is not naming him because he fears for his safety,
“I’ve seen a lot of videos of soldiers approaching people on the streets and after, those people are taken,” he said in a recent interview, the sound of loud explosions frequently booming in the background.
Fortunately, he quit his job before Russia invaded Ukraine, he said, because otherwise he could have been picked up at work and conscripted.
A Ukrainian man who fled Mariupol, who did not want to be identified because he is concerned for his family’s safety, told The Globe in Lviv that his 55-year-old father has been hiding at home to avoid conscription.
“There are a lot of people hiding, the world needs to know,” he said.
He said people in Donetsk had some hope that after the referendums, mobilization would be over and people would stop going missing from the streets. But the same dread washed over people and they became even more depressed, he said.
“I hear from people in Donetsk, the realization that this hiding and nightmare won’t be over soon for them,” he said, saying he can’t speak to people’s feelings in other occupied territories but assumes it would be similar to how people in Donetsk felt in February when mobilization began.
“If men in Kherson didn’t hide before, they definitely should do it now and they probably do.”
Serhii Khlan, deputy of the Kherson regional council, said in a short briefing that was posted online Friday that mobilization has not taken place so far, but that locals have said people representing the occupying forces have been going door to door to gather census information and paying particular attention to men 18 years of age and older. “Their aim was to find men of the call-up age, but they didn’t serve any call-up papers,” he said.
Russian military vehicles move on a highway in an area controlled by Russian-backed separatist forces near Mariupol, Ukraine, April 18, 2022.Alexei Alexandrov/The Associated Press
Similarly, Petro Andriushchenko, an adviser to the mayor of Mariupol, said forceful mobilization in Mariupol has not yet begun but he is sure it will happen sooner or later. He said there are two lists being created, one is a census of men who could be mobilized, and another is those who need to continue to work in critical infrastructure.
“The general mood is scared, people are scared about the process,” he said.
Mr. Andriushchenko said Russia could mobilize up to 10,000 men in Mariupol and that they will be sent to the front line, saying it is part of “genocide.”
“If they conscript men from Mariupol, they will go to the frontier of the attack, which guarantees 100-per-cent losses of those people. So they use them as cannon fodder and it’s part of genocide of people of Mariupol.”
Mr. Andriushchenko said Russia is trying to preserve Russian soldiers lives and sacrifice people from temporary occupied territories.
The 26-year-old who spoke to The Globe said he has a friend who was called to an enlisting office from work, but luckily, he was sick and so his boss told him to stay home because it seemed as though the soldiers forgot about him. Another friend texted him and said he was taken to Kherson, and he hasn’t heard from him since. A former colleague was also taken, but then he was wounded and has been left alone.
“I don’t want to test my luck,” he said, saying there are people who smuggle men to Russia to escape conscription, but he’s afraid that if he gives one of these men money, they will take him to an enlisting office.
“My parents, my family, they will not live with nothing elsewhere and I can’t leave them behind here so that motivates me to stay home and care about them and to hide.”
Rachel Denber, Human Rights Watch deputy director for Europe and Central Asia division, said each and every instance of a forced mobilization or drafting of a person in occupied areas of Ukraine by Russian officials or forces affiliated with them is a war crime. “It’s a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions,” she said.
Ivan Fedorov, the exiled mayor of the Russian-occupied city of Melitopol, said last month that Ukrainian residents there feared they would be called up after the referendum on joining Russia. He said the last official route out of Melitopol to territory controlled by Ukraine had been closed.
“Our residents are frightened, they are panicking, they don’t know what will happen tomorrow, and when people will start being called up,” he told a news briefing.
Mr. Fedorov said he believed one of the main reasons for holding the referendums was to enable Russia to conscript Ukrainians after Mr. Putin’s announcement of partial mobilization.
With a report from Reuters
Janice Dickson