They are on the side of their country and still have to fight for the enemy: in occupied areas of the Donbass region, pro-Russian separatists are said to be increasingly forcibly recruiting Ukrainian men.
A man has been hiding in his own apartment for months. He no longer dares to go out on the street. The fear that he will be stopped, checked and then declared fit for the military is too great. However, not for his country’s army, but for the Russians. Scenes like this are said to play out again and again in the self-proclaimed People’s Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk.
There, Russians and pro-Russian separatists are said to be forcing Ukrainian men to fight against their own country. That writes the Guardian, citing credible evidence, including a video taken at the end of June. This shows a man being dragged into a vehicle in front of his wife.
This is followed by a war of words between the woman and two officers. One of the two is holding her husband’s Ukrainian passport. One of the men justifies that he is from the conscription service and that it is a general mobilization. The Ukrainian man’s documents would have to be checked.
“They will be forcibly sent to the army”
The video was published on Telegram, but was blocked shortly thereafter. Oleksandra Matviychuk, Ukrainian lawyer and human rights activist, received the video. She then published parts of it on Twitter. “Since February 24, men have been stopped in the street, their passports taken from them and forcibly sent to the army,” Matviychuk told the Guardian.
“It’s cruel”
As head of the Center for Civil Liberties in Kyiv, Matviychuk has been documenting human rights violations for years, including forced conscription in the self-proclaimed People’s Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk. However, since the beginning of the war on Ukraine, these have increased significantly.
Matviychuk believes the video was shot in mid-June, when the draft squads started a new wave of forced conscription. In the search for men, checkpoints were set up on freeways and at exits to cities.
‘It’s cruel. They demand that Ukrainian men kill other Ukrainian citizens,” says Matviychuk. She estimates that a total of around half a million Ukrainians in the Donbass region are eligible for forced conscription by the Russians.
“They hunt us”
Since the end of February, the Center for Civil Liberties has repeatedly received letters from citizens asking for help. For example, from a man from the Luhansk region. For fear of forced recruitment, he hid in his apartment and no longer dared to go out on the street. Patrol cars had been looking for men for months.
“They chase us like stray cats,” Matviychuk quotes from the letter. Chechen fighters would also help in the search for men. In his letter, the man asks how he can hold Russia accountable in court.
Incidentally, Matviychuk does not know what fate befell the man captured in the video by pro-Russian separatists. The video ends with the man being allowed to leave. However, only on the condition that he reports to the draft office within two hours, says Matwijtschuk. What happened to him after that is not known.
KEYSTONE/AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic