When Ukraine’s new Defense Minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, stood before parliament on January 14 and revealed that around two million Ukrainians are currently wanted for evading mobilization, with a further 200,000 soldiers AWOL, it was not just a startling statistic, but for me, not a surprising one either. It was a moral indictment this nation can scarcely afford.
Let’s be clear: Ukraine is in an existential fight for survival. In any war, there will always be those who try to avoid call-up, but, while our soldiers are dying, wounded, and gasping for rest and reinforcements, also fighting an enemy with vastly greater numbers and resources, the scale of evasion we are now seeing points to failure on multiple levels: political, logistical, and painfully moral.
In August 2025, the government passed revisions allowing men aged 18–22 to cross the border legally, a move intended to balance human rights with military necessity.
The reform acknowledged demographic realities and granted limited freedom to younger men, but it also opened a door many interpreted not as a temporary reprieve, but as an easy exit.
In my view, had these issues been addressed earlier, both legally and culturally, we might not be staring at these numbers today.
Let me be blunt. I have little room in my heart for those who refuse to serve or shirk their duty while continuing to rely on the very state apparatus and social systems they now evade.
If you draw from Ukraine’s social fabric, schools, healthcare, public services, you owe Ukraine your commitment in return. To live here, work here, raise a family here, benefit from society, and then run? That is not just evasion, it’s betrayal.
That said, Ukraine has long maintained a form of informal amnesty for personnel who experience a change of conscience, something I have seen first hand. There is a clear route back, often with little prejudice. Acknowledging this may make my earlier words sound harsh, but it is an important reality. There is, however, no clear picture of how many may eventually return. What we do see are countless videos circulating online, particularly amplified by Russian propaganda channels, featuring those who have gone AWOL or deserted, weaponised to undermine morale.
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I am also aware of cases involving overzealous recruiters, some operating in plain clothes, I have even been stopped myself while walking to the shops. These actions remain debatable, but realistically, in several years of travelling extensively across Ukraine on public transport, I have only been stopped twice. Perspective matters, and online clips rarely show the full picture.
It is also worth remembering that Russia faces similar problems: stealth mobilization, conscripts manning frontlines, and now the looming prospect of a deeply unpopular full mobilization. After more than four years of war, longer than the Soviet “Great Patriotic War” Russia has still failed to take Donetsk Oblast or even secure an oblast capital, despite sustaining an estimated 1.2 million casualties, attrition style losses masked by propaganda.
Every Ukrainian who fights, regardless of gender, is performing a sacred duty. I recently interviewed Oksana Pechanyuk, the first female graduate of the UK Naval College: a bright young woman bound by honour, duty, and devotion to her country who is now serving in a major city within Ukraine. Her example stands in stark contrast to those who choose to hide. That is the mirror we should all look into, and most refuse to. Duty is not something a small minority of brave men and women should shoulder while thousands walk away.
This war is an unwanted choice forced upon Ukrainians: whether our way of life and culture are defended, or overrun by Russian imperialism and the ethnic erasure already unfolding in occupied territories, where the Ukrainian language itself has been banned, if not yet officially.
Some argue that recruitment problems are Ukraine’s own fault, that mismanaged mobilization has crippled manpower. They are not wrong. The process has been messy, bureaucratic, and at times chaotic, breeding distrust between citizens and the state and weakening our defence posture, but, poor policy, despite contributing to this, doesn’t justify in my opinion mass evasion. Policies can change, but courage cannot be outsourced.
Courage is not the absence of fear, but the ability to act in spite of it.
The choice to flee or hide is not merely a legal issue; it is a moral fracture within society, a failure to understand what is coming, a fight-or-flight moment with no neutral ground. Communication has been poor, certainly. Yet we are at war, and sometimes I wonder how Ukraine has managed, even cosmetically, to hold itself together over the past four years.
The message I send those who runaway is simple and brutal:
If you fight, you choose life, while you choose death for Ukraine, if you run.
That judgement will weigh heavier than any legal penalty, personally, you have to spend a longtime living with yourself, a decision I had to make 24th February 2022 in Mariupol.
Ukraine needs every capable defender it can get, not just in numbers, but in conviction.
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