Illegal border crossings surge as Ukraine tightens conscription laws

"These are classified information," - that’s how Ihor Klymenko, head of Ukraine's Ministry of Internal Affairs, cuts off discussions about the number of conscripts who have fled the country since the war started. For an army desperately in need of recruits, this is a problem, while for corrupt officials, it’s an opportunity to make money.

In the forests, there are camera traps and vehicles with electro-optical heads, while in the air, there are drones, airplanes, and helicopters. This is how the Border Guard monitors the Tisza. The river, in a 63-kilometre section, is the border between Ukraine and Romania. The main goal is to hinder illegal border crossings.

Conscripts who want to avoid being drafted into the army choose this area, even though it’s not the safest. They flee on pontoons, mattresses, and even by swimming. Some drown. Border guards from both countries have already retrieved over 30 bodies.

Others try to cross into Hungary or Moldova, but the green border is also dangerous there. On the bank of the Turunchuk river, marking the border with Moldova, in March, a resident of Odessa was found in a state of severe hypothermia. In the same month, the border guards saved the lives of three young men from Zhytomyr Oblast, who got lost in the Mukachevo area while trying to get to Hungary. They were soaked, frozen, and completely unprepared for crossing the mountains.

A safer option is to try to sneak through a border crossing. However, the risk of being caught is higher—a truck headed to Hungary, which was supposed to transport grain on the trailer, was found to be carrying 41 escapees.

It is impossible to state how many Ukrainians have illegally left the country since the beginning of the war. The only certain number seems to be 22,000 arrested for attempts to cross the border illegally or for possessing false documents allowing them to leave Ukraine. The scale is unknown, as Ukraine's Ministry of Internal Affairs considers this data classified. Only in Romania, the official number given by the Border Guard is 11,000 people.

At the end of last year, Volodymyr Zelensky announced that with the approaching Russian counteroffensive, the army asked him to mobilize 450,000–500,000 conscripts. Meanwhile, the immediate need was for 150,000 new soldiers.

In mid-May, new mobilization regulations started to apply in Ukraine. The law replaced universal conscription with a five-month training period for all men capable of military service. This especially affects those aged 18-25. Until the age of 25, they will not be mobilized into frontline units but will undergo periodic training.

The Ministry of Defense of Ukraine also informed conscripts who are abroad to return and report to the territorial recruitment centre for updating their military registration data.

It was announced that if someone does not register, they may later face problems obtaining documents or be deprived of consular services, which can significantly complicate their stay abroad. It may also be difficult to find a job upon return to Ukraine or continue their education.

"If these people think that someone far away on the front line is fighting and giving their lives for this country, while someone will sit abroad yet receive services from the state, it doesn't work that way," wrote on the platform "X" the head of Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Dmytro Kuleba.

Ukraine has been fighting those who facilitate conscripts' dodging frontline service. After illegal exits from the country, the second most common method of escaping the army is falsifying medical documentation and getting added to the list of professions crucial for defence. This lucrative business is thriving.

The prelude to the current intensified anti-corruption campaign was still in 2023. At that time, officers from the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine were mainly checking logistics and Territorial Recruitment Centres. As a result of the inspections, all regional commissioners in Ukraine were dismissed from their positions on corruption charges.

The "hard" fight began at the start of 2024. The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) revealed that since April 2022, a judge from the District Court in Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi had been enabling conscripts to leave the country on the basis of fictitious certificates. For $3,500, the judge issued a document stating that they had children living abroad and that the conscript was their sole provider. A thousand such certificates were issued.

Now the officers have moved further. The services launched a hotline to report cases of avoiding military service. This led to the capture of the head of a village in Ternopil Oblast, who falsified letters justifying the need to direct conscripts to transport humanitarian goods allegedly for the needs of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Such a service cost $12,000.

A real gang was busted in Kyiv. The director of one hospital, the head of the endocrinology department, a nurse from that hospital, and a surgeon from the state Heart Institute of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine were arrested. The prosecution found that they acted jointly and by mutual agreement, so they were also charged with operating in an organized criminal group. They all face up to 15 years in prison. More than 20 escapees used their services, paying between $3,000 and $5,000 for certificates of poor health.

Officially, although the mobilization law has been in effect for barely two months, Ukraine is already able to form 10 new brigades [brigades consist of 3,500-4,000 soldiers—ed.]. Is this really the case? It's hard to say definitively—new information has just emerged that prisoners convicted of minor crimes are already serving in the army. The Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine reported that over 3,000 out of the 27,000 prisoners eligible for the "freedom for fight" program have taken advantage of it. Recruiting prisoners may indicate that the conscription did not go as planned by Kyiv.