For Ukrainians in Canada, new conscription rules increase pressure to fight
The Sunday Magazine24:42Sunday Documentary: Flight or Fight
Dmytro, who is non-binary and uses the pronoun they, says they feel safe in a country that accepts them as they are. But they know it’s different in Ukraine.
“You’re going to be looked upon as a person who is weak, a person who is afraid, the person who is working [for] their enemy,” said Dmytro, a tall, slim 20-something with a mop of brown hair.
They didn’t want their age or full name used, fearful of being targeted for fleeing the Russia-Ukraine war. In fact, no Ukrainian in Canada that CBC Radio spoke to for this story wanted their full name used.
The reason: Ukraine has recently dropped the conscription age from 27 to 25, increased fines for draft dodgers to half the average monthly wage and ordered embassies to stop renewing passports for Ukrainian men living abroad. All of this is part of an effort to get them to return home — and bolster the military’s ranks as the war enters its third summer.
New laws require Ukrainian men between 18 and 60 to update their draft data with military conscription centres inside the country — including Dmytro, who has been living in Canada for 18 months.
As a result, emotions are running high among those who fled the war and those on the front lines who feel abandoned.
‘No one is really safe’
In the bedroom of their modest basement apartment, Dmytro is watching a chaotic scene: smartphone video from Ukraine that shows what they fear is their eventual fate, and that of their father.
In the video posted to social media earlier this month, a group of men in military fatigues try to force another man into a police car. He resists, aided by a couple of women, and eventually runs off. The women and the men in fatigues yell at each other. One man attempts a headbutt. A Ukrainian flag flaps in the background.
This video posted to social media in Ukraine in early June 2024 shows a confrontation on the streets of the capital. A military recruitment centre in Kyiv said in a statement that it was its staff and members of the national police force in the video. The statement said they had identified people evading military duty, and were acting lawfully.
Dmytro says social media posts like this one have become common in their home country. Ukrainians say the videos show military officials grabbing men off the street to send them to recruitment centres, where they are medically cleared for duty and sent to the front lines.
Most of the videos are unverified, but a recruitment centre in Kyiv said its staff, as well as members of the national police force, appeared in this particular video. The statement said they had identified people evading military duty, and were acting lawfully.
“We do hear the constant screams of women all around, trying to protect this civilian who they don’t know, but they are seeing what is happening,” Dmytro said as he watched the video. “And obviously they are seeing their sons, they’re seeing their fathers, they’re seeing their husbands [in] his place, because no one is really safe [from conscription].”
Worrying for their father
Dmytro, whose parents are still in Kyiv, worries their father, who is in his 50s, will be called up. The pair talk on the phone almost every week.
A 57-year-old shoemaker who Dmytro’s father knows recently went to a recruitment centre to update his military data. Within days, he was fighting on the front line.
Dmytro says everyone is afraid.
“It’s been constantly portrayed in media that Russian mobilization is bad, but Ukrainian mobilization is good. Yet there is no difference, currently.”
Dmytro gives several reasons for avoiding the war, including doubt about whether Ukraine can regain all its territory with military power alone, and a belief that aggression only leads to more aggression in return.
“I’ve never been in a fight in my life, so I cannot imagine myself taking some kind of gun or any weapon at all [and] going against other people,” Dmytro said.
They say being non-binary also plays a role.
“I never saw Ukraine as the place where I could be fully accepted,” they said. “I love the country, but I never loved the government.”
Without military registration, Dmytro can no longer get their Ukrainian passport renewed. It doesn’t expire for another three and a half years, but still they worry.
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada confirmed that anyone applying for permanent or temporary residence in Canada is required to provide a valid passport or travel document. However, the ministry may consider exceptional circumstances on a case-by-case basis.
When asked specifically about Ukraine’s conscription laws, the ministry did not provide an answer.
Distrust in government
A distrust of their homeland’s government runs strong through the Ukrainians in Dmytro’s orbit.
Kateryna, who works at the same Winnipeg supermarket as Dmytro, says she knows two people who went to the front lines: a childhood friend who she thinks is still fighting and an ex-boyfriend who was killed.
But men went voluntarily. Kateryna believes people should not be forced to fight.
The Ukrainian government has argued the new policies are about being fair to soldiers already in the fight. Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said it would be right if “men from abroad return to Ukraine and stand by them, by each other, in defending their country.”
But Ukrainians no longer trust their government, Kateryna said. Surveys inside Ukraine suggest trust in government is dropping rapidly, though trust in the armed forces is near total.
“A lot of help for Ukraine, Ukraine didn’t get,” she said in halting English. “So government get it and put it in the pocket.”
Government corruption has been a longstanding issue in Ukraine. Transparency International’s most recent corruption perception index ranked the country 104th out of 180. Canada ranked 12th.
Kateryna points to 2022, when General Motors donated 50 SUVs to Ukraine for humanitarian work and transporting citizens out of conflict zones. According to local media, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, then the deputy head of the president’s office, used one as a company car. After public criticism, Tymoshenko gave up the vehicle.
Kateryna said, “If you want to motivate the people, you should show that all people have the same rights. Right?”
‘I want to be part of history’
Not everyone is fleeing the war. Andrew Trydid ran toward it.
The former economist from Kharkiv had no military background when he decided to serve on Feb. 24, 2022, the day Russia invaded.
Trydid had sight problems, so the recruitment office told him he could do paperwork and similar tasks. He started working with the Red Cross instead, and eventually had laser eye surgery to correct his vision. Last fall, he re-applied to the military and was accepted for a full combat role.
Trydid never considered leaving.
“I want to be part of history,” he said. “I want to protect my families. My city. I want to protect my Ukraine.”
He doesn’t agree with Ukrainian men fleeing the conflict. But he’s not sure that forcing them to the front lines will help.
A reluctant conscript might inadvertently endanger him, Trydid says. If you don’t want to be on the battlefield, will you make a mistake?
Trydid has suggestions other than conscription, including better pay for military personnel. He says those on the front line are well compensated, but that those away from the front would likely earn more money in countries like Canada. He also wants to see more focus on attracting foreign fighters and recruiting police officers.
Most of his friends from before the war fled Ukraine. He hasn’t kept in touch.
“What is the item to speak with them about?” he said. “How they have a very difficult life in Europe because they’re running away from Ukraine?”
Despite his disappointment, Trydid can’t bring himself to speak ill of those who have chosen not to join him.
“I do not condemn them,” he said. “I cannot do it. It’s their choice. Of course I wish some of my friends [would] be with me, like my brothers [in arms]… I want it to be like that, but it’s not.”
Conversely, Dmytro has nothing but respect for what they call the “warriors” fighting on the front.
“Those people are the reason, the sole reason, why we still have Ukraine.”
Published at Sat, 12 Feb 2022 16:04:48 +0000
Southern Gaza aid route to see ‘tactical pause’ in fighting, says Israel
Israel’s military announced on Sunday that it would pause fighting throughout daytime hours along a route in southern Gaza to free up a backlog of humanitarian aid deliveries destined for desperate Palestinians enduring a humanitarian crisis sparked by the war, now in its ninth month.
The “tactical pause” announced by the military, which applies to about 12 kilometres of road in the Rafah area, falls far short of a complete ceasefire in the beleaguered territory that has been sought by the international community, including Israel’s top ally: the United States. If it holds, the limited halt in fighting could help address some of the overwhelming needs of Palestinians that have surged even more in recent weeks with Israel’s incursion into Rafah.
The army said the pause would begin at 8 a.m. local time and remain in effect until 7 p.m. It said the pauses would take place every day until further notice.
The pause is aimed at allowing aid trucks to reach the nearby Israel-controlled Kerem Shalom crossing, the main entry point for incoming aid, and travel safely to the Salah a-Din highway — a main north-south road, the military said. The crossing has suffered from a bottleneck since Israeli ground troops moved into Rafah in early May.
COGAT, the Israeli military body that oversees aid distribution in Gaza, said the route would increase the flow of aid to other parts of Gaza, including Khan Younis, Muwasi and central Gaza. Hard-hit northern Gaza, which was an early target in the war, is being served by goods entering from a crossing in the north.
The military said the pause Sunday, which begins as Muslims start marking the major Eid al-Adha holiday, came after discussions with the United Nations and international aid agencies.
Following criticism of the move by ultra-nationalists in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, who oppose a halt in the war, the military said fighting is not being paused in the rest of southern Gaza and there is no change regarding the entry of aid in general.
Aid agencies, including the UN, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The pause along the southern route comes as Israel and Hamas are weighing the latest proposal for a ceasefire, a plan that was detailed by President Joe Biden in the administration’s most concentrated diplomatic push for a halt to the fighting and the release of hostages taken by the militant group. While Biden described the proposal as an Israeli one, Israel has not fully embraced it and Hamas has demanded changes that appear unacceptable to Israel.
The fighting, meanwhile, continues unabated. Israel announced the names Sunday of 11 soldiers killed in recent attacks in Gaza. That puts the number of soldiers killed since Israel began its ground invasion of Gaza last year at 308. Hamas killed 1,200 people during its Oct. 7 attack and took 250 hostage, Israeli authorities say. Health officials in Hamas-run Gaza say more than 37,000 Palestinians have been killed.
Israel’s military offensive against Hamas has plunged Gaza into a humanitarian crisis, with the UN reporting widespread hunger and hundreds of thousands of people on the brink of famine. The international community has urged Israel to do more to allow aid to flow.
Egypt remains firm on Rafah crossing
Another crossing, the Rafah terminal between Gaza and Egypt, has been closed since Israel moved into the city. Hamas’s leader, Ismail Haniyeh, on Sunday called for more pressure to open border crossings into Gaza. Egypt has refused to reopen the Rafah crossing as long as Israel controls the Palestinian side in Gaza.
From May 6 until June 6, the UN received an average of 68 trucks of aid a day, according to figures from the UN humanitarian office, known as OCHA. That was down from 168 a day in April and far below the 500 trucks a day that aid groups say are needed.
Aid trucks are not getting into Gaza, strangling food, water and medical supplies. Some truck drivers avoid areas where Israeli settlers attack aid trucks while Egypt and Israel blame each other for keeping the main Rafah crossing into Gaza closed after Israel captured it a week ago.
The flow of aid in southern Gaza declined just as the humanitarian need grew. More than one million Palestinians, many of whom had already been displaced, fled Rafah after the invasion, crowding into other parts of southern and central Gaza. Most now languish in ramshackle tent camps, using trenches as latrines, with open sewage in the streets.
COGAT says there are no restrictions on the entry of trucks. It says more than 8,600 trucks of all kinds, both aid and commercial, entered Gaza from all crossings from May 2 to June 13, an average of 201 a day. But much of that aid has piled up at the crossings and not reached its final destination.
A spokesman for COGAT, Shimon Freedman, said it was the UN’s fault that its cargos stacked up on the Gaza side of Kerem Shalom. He said the agencies have “fundamental logistical problems that they have not fixed,” especially a lack of trucks.
The UN denies such allegations. It says the fighting between Israel and Hamas often makes it too dangerous for UN trucks inside Gaza to travel to Kerem Shalom, which is right next to Israel’s border.
It also says the pace of deliveries has been slowed because the Israeli military must authorize drivers to travel to the site, a system Israel says was designed for the drivers’ safety. Due to a lack of security, aid trucks in some cases have also been looted by crowds as they moved along Gaza’s roads.
As Israeli airstrikes continued to hit Gaza on Wednesday, people in the central city of Deir al Balah told freelance journalist Mohamed El Saife they hope Hamas leaders accept a ceasefire plan outlined by U.S. President Joe Biden last week, but called for international guarantees and clear terms around rebuilding. ‘They have to agree this time, because people are very tired,’ said Abdul Karim Al-Qarnawi, a resident.
The new arrangement aims to reduce the need for co-ordinating deliveries by providing an 11-hour uninterrupted window each day for trucks to move in and out of the crossing.
It was not immediately clear whether the army would provide security to protect the aid trucks as they moved along the highway.
Published at Sun, 16 Jun 2024 10:45:02 +0000
