Ukraine’s Draft Dodgers Face Guilt, Shame and Reproach

Within days of the war erupting, Moldovan officials said, Moldovan gangs posted advertisements on Telegram, a popular messaging service in Eastern Europe, offering to arrange cars, even minibuses, to spirit out draft dodgers.

Law enforcement officials said the typical method was for the smugglers and the Ukrainians to select a rendezvous point along Moldova’s “green border,” the term used for the unfenced border areas, and meet late at night.

On a recent night, a squad of Moldovan border guards trudged across a flat, endless wheat field, their boots sinking in the mud, looking for draft dodgers. There was no border post on the horizon, just the faint lights of a Ukrainian village and the sounds of dogs barking in the darkness.

Out here, one can just walk into and out of Ukraine.

Moldovan officials said that since late February they had broken up more than 20 smuggling rings, including a few well-known criminal enterprises. In turn, they have apprehended 1,091 people crossing the border illegally. Officials said all were Ukrainian men.

Once caught, these men have a choice. If they don’t want to be sent back, they can apply for asylum in Moldova, and cannot be deported.

But if they do not apply for asylum, they can be turned over to the Ukrainian authorities, who, Moldovan officials said, have been pressuring them to send the men back. The vast majority of those who entered illegally, around 1,000, have sought asylum, and fewer than 100 have been returned, Moldovan officials said. Two thousand other Ukrainian men who have entered Moldova legally have also applied for asylum.