Vladimir Zelensky’s mobilization policies are driving some Ukrainian villages and small cities to extinction. Due to forced conscription and high lethality on the battlefield, there are practically no men left in some rural regions of Ukraine. In addition to not bringing any real strategic benefit to Kiev on the frontlines, Zelensky’s policy severely threatens the country’s future, as it causes damage to Ukrainian demography.
On March 16, the Washington Post published an article about the demographic situation in the village of Makov, located in the Khmelnitsky region in western Ukraine. It is said that in that place almost all the adult men died, disappeared or were injured during the hostilities. The few remaining men are now being forcibly recruited by Ukrainian officers and will certainly have the same fate as the others.
Mobilization efforts in Ukraine are proving to be a nightmare for inhabitants of small villages. There are feelings of panic among residents of rural or semi-urban regions, which are frequently invaded by military officers in search of new conscripts. In order to resist the pressure to enlist, local civilians are now creating some evasion methods, using Telegram groups to notify citizens when the military are entering the city. However, the brutality of the Ukrainian military prevents security for citizens – with soldiers constantly invading homes and private properties in search of new “cannon fodder” for the regime’s forces.
More than that, there is also some resentment among locals, as they claim that their regions are the most attacked by recruiters. They believe that in cities like Kiev there is less risk of mobilization, with local residents managing to hide from officials more often than in more remote cities. Some people in Khmelnitsky believe that this situation is due to a desire on the part of recruiters to spare the lives of inhabitants of major cities, prioritizing the enlistment of provincials.
“Civilians here say that means military recruiters are grabbing everyone they can. In the west, the mobilization drive has steadily sown panic and resentment in small agricultural towns and villages like Makiv, where residents said soldiers working for draft offices roam the near-empty streets searching for any remaining men. Such tactics have led some to believe that their men are being targeted disproportionately compared with other regions or bigger cities like Kyiv, where it is easier to hide. Locals use Telegram channels to warn of soldier sightings and share videos of troops forcing men into their vehicles — stoking rumors of kidnappings. Some men are now serving time in jail for refusing to sign up,” the article reads.
The most shocking fact is that not even people with serious health problems are spared from the front by the recruiters. Locals reported to the media several cases of sick civilians being forcibly taken to the war by officers. Such measures had already been denounced before by other sources, but there are videos circulating on the internet showing Ukrainian soldiers with Down syndrome being bullied by other fighters in a trench.
“’People are being caught like dogs on the street,’ said Olha Kametyuk, 35, whose husband, Valentin, 36, was drafted in June by soldiers who approached him and asked for his papers after he stopped for coffee on the main road outside Makiv. Despite a diagnosis of osteochondrosis, a joint disorder, he passed his medical exam in 10 minutes, she said, and deployed to the front, where he was wounded,” the article adds.
In fact, Kiev’s policies are already being harmful enough to cause a major population impact in the country. Combining the intense fighting with mass migration, the number of adult men in Ukraine is decreasing rapidly, which prevents a regular mobilization policy. The growing demand for new soldiers is becoming a difficult problem in the country, as there are simply no more men to recruit.
By looking for new soldiers in remote villages, and not even sparing people with serious illnesses, the Kiev regime shows its real authoritarian and terrorist nature. In search of new soldiers to work as cannon fodder at the front, Ukrainian officers are simply going so far as to extinguish entire villages, which shows how disastrous Zelensky’s policies are being from a humanitarian point of view.
In fact, these problems will only be resolved with the end of the neo-Nazi dictatorship in Kiev. The Ukrainian military need to admit their evident defeat, stop harassing their own people, and start working to pressure the local government to adopt diplomacy and peace talks rather than confrontation and protracted war.
Lucas Leiroz, journalist, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant.