Front Burner - Why are men fleeing Ukraine, and the war?

Episode Date: February 5, 2024

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion nearly two years ago, most men have been banned from leaving Ukraine. That hasn’t stopped thousands from making illegal border crossings to escape. Why are so many Ukrainian men risking these journeys? How is Ukraine trying to stop them? What could the crossings signal about Ukrainians’ attitudes toward a new phase of this war? CBC’s Briar Stewart went to neighbouring Moldova to find answers. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Damon Fairless. Do you feel guilty at all for leaving? I don't feel guilty. I've saved my life. I don't want to come home in a coffin or in a wheelchair.

This is CBC correspondent Briar Stewart. She's speaking with a man named Vladimir. He's from Ukraine, but he's now in neighboring Moldova. Vladimir and the man he's with, Sergei, both ran through the cold and mud for hours last month, crossing the border illegally. They've asked that we only use their first names. Every man needs to have a choice, you know, because if you want to go into war, defend your country, okay, it's your choice.

What do you think of the fact that Ukraine says it needs more soldiers or it could lose? could lose? In every war, I lose everybody. Since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine almost two years ago, it's been illegal for most men to leave. But as the war has dragged on, over 15,000 Ukrainian men have crossed illegally into neighboring Moldova. It's an exodus that continues even as Ukraine's military says it needs hundreds of thousands more fighters for a stagnant war effort that's facing wavering support from allies. So how are thousands of men managing to leave the country? Why do they refuse to fight?

And what could it signal about Ukrainians' attitudes towards a new phase of this war? My colleague Briar Stewart recently went to Moldova to find answers, and she joins me now from London. Hey Briar, thanks for coming on Frontrunner. I really appreciate it. Absolutely. Okay, so let's start with a little bit of a geography lesson here. Can you tell me more about Moldova?

I understand it's right next to Ukraine, but why is it an obvious place to go if you were interested in leaving Ukraine? Right. Well, it's obvious because it borders Ukraine on three sides, basically, in the north, in the east, and in the south. And it is a very large border, 1,200 kilometers. And to give you a sense of the geography around it, in the north, you it is a very large border, 1,200 kilometers. And to give you a sense of the geography around it, in the north, you have men crossing there. It is a little bit more challenging in some areas because you have the Dniester River. On the eastern side, some of it's a challenge too because you have this Russian-backed separatist region of Transnistria. And in the south, that is

where we were in the border, and that's where you have a lot of men cross. For one, it's proximity to a major city in Ukraine. It's about 60 kilometers or so from Odessa. And it is very remote. And at this time of year, you have a lot of barren farm fields, a lot of muddy roads, and not a lot of villages in between. So it's kind of the remoteness that men take advantage of, if you will, as they try to get out under the cover of darkness. You went on a ride-along with the Moldovan Border Patrol basically looking for these guys. So can you tell me about that? What's the process? How are they looking for Ukrainians crossing the border?

Right. So they're basically out 24 hours a day in different teams. And the guys that we were with were watching an area of about 30 kilometers. And they're using equipment. A lot of it, which was obtained in the fall, was given to them by countries, including Germany. Germany had given them some drones. And basically what they're doing is they're using these drones and thermal imaging equipment to scan the landscape. And, you know, they see animals, they see, you know, anything that is moving, anything that is of a higher temperature, and they see an awful lot of men.

Probably we, now we can find such people because in Ukraine exists the war situation. And we, every night, every day, can't find such illegal migrants. When we were there, we went out with them overnight, actually. I think we actually drove out with them around 2 a.m. in the morning. And what the drone operator who I was speaking to, his name is Vladimir Kurtymov, he's 24 years old, and he'd been kind of doing this role since September. And he said he will frequently see men in Ukraine approaching the border. So he'll see them on his screen, on his remote control for the drone, even before they cross.

And that's when he starts to kind of notify the rest of his team. He's approaching to the border. I understand that in five minutes, ten minutes, he probably will enter in our territory. So you can see him even before he leaves Ukraine? And when I observe this person, when he entered in our territory, I save my partner to drive car. 20-25 minutes, the immigrant is arrested. That being said, he said there's a few occasions too

when he's seen the men and he's flying his drone in the air. And in fact, they've turned around because he thinks they've heard the buzzing, fearful. So they're using the drones. They're also using kind of large mobile trucks with thermal imaging equipment. And then you have, I guess, old fashioned checkpoints set up. When we were there, it was again early in the morning around 6 a.m. that they had stopped a vehicle. And in that vehicle were four Ukrainian men and a local from Moldova who they had paid to help them cross the border.

And so that's also kind of the work that they're doing to survey the area. This is obviously happening with a lot of frequency. Can you give me a sense of what the police told you about how often people are trying to cross the border? Yes, well, very often. I mean, they had said since the start of the war, so February 24th, 2022, 15,000 men have crossed illegally. And so it's been almost two years. So if you do the math, it's about 20 men entering illegally a day. math, it's about 20 men entering illegally a day. The detachment that we were with, they're not seeing men every day per se, but they are saying that they cross most often on the weekend. They

will see them come in in groups of four or five or in pairs. And really what they do is, you know, they would get dropped off somewhere on the Ukrainian side and they would walk. They would walk for hours, often in very frigid conditions, carrying, you know, just a backpack with a passport. A couple of the men that we had spoken to carried a change of clothes and some toiletries. Each of them saying that we are running from the war and we want to get protection, Moldavian protection on our territory.

And then when they cross over, what happens is it really depends on whether or not they are spotted by the border guards right away. And if they are, then they are detained, questioned briefly. Sometimes they're questioned a little bit longer if they have paid somebody to help them get across. are questioned a little bit longer if they have paid somebody to help them get across. But after that, they are essentially released and they have to go to the immigration center to claim asylum. And once they're there, they are fingerprinted and photographed and all that information goes into a database for the migration officials in Moldova. And what they say is that they really have to convince the men that they're then not

going to turn that information over to the Ukrainian authorities. And they don't. I mean, Moldova says it's not something they could do. It's part of international law. These men are claiming asylum. They're protected at that point. And the vast majority of these men who go to Moldova, it is just a gateway for them. Their real destination or their main goal is to get to the EU. What happens is a lot of them will get the asylum status. They then refuse it, they reject it, and they move on to the EU out through Romania. But can you help me understand that process a little more? Like you spoke with men, Ukrainian men who are going through this process. What do they tell you? I mean, the process begins really months before they make that decision to leave,

and they have been struggling with this decision for quite a long time. As I mean, the process begins really months before they make that decision to leave. And they have been struggling with this decision for quite a long time. As I said, you know, it's nearly two years that this war has been going on. And the one gentleman that I spoke to at the immigration center, Vitaly, he's 38 years old. He was working at a casino in Odessa. And he said he basically had been saving his money during the last year, planning to do this. But it was a decision that he agonized over. It was difficult. I've been thinking about it for over a year. I didn't have any questions. I just had to decide to leave my country.

I don't know how we're going to get back now, but that's how it is. in Ukraine at the moment, between the ages of 18 and 60 are banned from leaving the country. And you have men that are not only trying to escape the possibility of being drafted, but you have had families that have been separated this whole time, you know, there'll be like the, the wife and the children that are somewhere in the EU and in EU country, and they've been completely disconnected from from, you know, the father or the husband or the brother. And so you do have men kind of making this journey as well, just to try to reunite with their family members. And my understanding is that the only option for men in Ukraine to leave is illegally, right?

Yes, unless you have an exemption. And these exemptions are very specific. So one of them is if you are a father of more than three children under the age of 18. You would be exempt if you're a full-time caregiver for somebody with a disability. You could also be exempt if you had a certificate showing that you were medically in fit for military service. And so these exemptions, you know, are not granted widely. But what Ukrainian authorities have said is that they've seen thousands of cases of men turning up at the border with what Ukraine says are fake documents, documents that have been forged, documents that these men have paid somebody to make, and they've been stopped from making that

journey. And I do think it's important to point out, like, it is very hard to say, you know, how many men have left, because we don't know. I mean, we know that Moldova, Romania, Slovakia and Hungary say that altogether at least 25,000 have crossed there illegally. But we don't know how many of them have gone through without being detected, without claiming asylum. We also don't know how many of them may have got through the checkpoints with fake documents or forged documents that the Ukrainian authorities just didn't pick up on. the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own

household income? That's not a typo, 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. I wanted a little more detail about how these guys are trying to cross it. You mentioned the area that you were in, what was the agricultural area with people are hiking across the border. What are the other ways that guys are trying to cross into Moldova? Right. Well, they're hiking. As I said, sometimes they're paying people to smuggle them across. And whether that means actually physically leading them across the border or taking them right up to the point where they cross on their own. Or in the north, people are actually swimming across the river or they're paying people to take them over in inflatable rafts.

And, you know, videos have been released from the Ukrainian authorities of men trying to cross through Romania, through Slovakia. And what Ukrainian authorities say is that 19 men have died crossing the Tisa River, which flows between Romania and Ukraine. And on another occasion, they had found a man who was wandering around in the snowy mountains in western Ukraine for two days. He was lost. And what had happened was he wasn't sure whether or not he had made it into Romania yet. So he had called the authorities to find him, to rescue him because he was lost. And what happened was it was the Ukrainian border guards who had responded. So after walking around for two days, he never did make it out of Ukraine. So we've been talking about the operation on the

Moldovan side of the border here, but with it being illegal for most Ukrainian men to cross, what's Ukraine doing to stop them? Well, what you see is from the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine. They're very active online. They have a Facebook account, a YouTube channel. They're posting, I would say almost daily, video and photos of men that they have stopped. Frequently, they have the men, often in a group, you know, five or six men, kind of lined up beside each other, they have their faces blurred, but they're under detention. And they also post people that they've stopped with fake documents, people that have been caught trying to offer a bribe to

border guards at the checkpoints. And I think we see all of this because they are really trying to show that there's a very good chance that they will get caught. And Ukraine says since this has started, it's caught more than 18,000 men trying to sneak out essentially. And then about two weeks ago, we came across a video that the Border Guard service had posted on YouTube. And it was, I think it was 13 minutes long. And it was kind of like a highly produced information segment. Like you might see it, you might even think, oh, this looks a little bit like a newscast

or who's behind this. And what it is, it was the State Border Guard Service and it had this very ominous music. It talked about the number who had died crossing the river between Romania and Ukraine. And I think the host at one point said something to the effect of, you know, people who try to escape can die while their peers remain in Ukraine to fight with weapons in their hand. see the messaging that they're trying to get at, not only perhaps trying to scaring men into staying put, but also making them think just about, you know, leaving their country at a time of war. One of the things you reported on is on the platform Telegram,

finding discussion groups about how guys can get out of Ukraine. What did you find on Telegram? Can you tell me about that? What are they discussing there? Yeah, you certainly do not have to look very hard to find them because they're everywhere. And Telegram is very popular in Ukraine as it is in Russia. It's a messaging platform. And there's just a number of users that advertise very openly the services that they're offering to help arrange transportation or other options to get men out of Ukraine. So I connected

with a few of them and, you know, asked them how much it would cost for a man to leave Odessa. how much it would cost for a man to leave Odessa. Then they would quote me prices. So to leave Odessa, it was 3,000 euros, which is over 4,000 Canadian. There were also individuals on there who were saying for the equivalent of 6,000 Canadian, they would make up a disability certificate, which would be authentic enough for the border guards to buy it, and the man would be able to leave legally through the checkpoint.

But basically, all of those, you know, accounts are out there advertising. And I think that's why the fact that they're there and the fact that Ukraine has said that they've, you know, seen thousands of these fake documents at the checkpoints just gives you a sense of, I guess, the demand for it. I remember when the war first broke out, the sense I got was that, you know, people were staying voluntarily, you know, to defend the country. It seems like as the war's dragged on, there's been this increasing pressure from Ukraine for men to stay or join the fight. So there's been a shift, right? There has. And absolutely, in the beginning, I mean, we saw scenes of crowds rushing to enlist, people, you know, signing up for the weapons that they were handing out because people, they were eager to defend their country. Two years on, I think the harsh, horrific realities of war has set in. I mean, you've had people who signed up in those initial days to fight on the front line, still fighting on the front line. And so people are tired,

families are tired. In fact, you've had, you know, there's been two or three protests in Ukraine, which is actually quite something because protests are also not allowed under the martial law, which is in place right now. But you have family members that stand in the street with signs saying, you know, demobilize my dad. You know, he's been gone for 300 days or something like that. So you've written about how Ukraine's counteroffensive really hasn't made many gains in the last year. And there's a kind of broad concerns that hit a stalemate. I guess I'm curious, in your conversations with Ukrainian men, what kind of doubts did you hear about whether it makes sense for them to fight and sacrifice their lives? I think they feel disheartened. And they also feel like this war that they have, you know,

been able to kind of be on the sidelines for, for the most part, is about to really hit home. This has been going on now for two years, and Ukraine is talking about trying to mobilize more men, potentially hundreds of thousands of more men. And so these guys who thought that they were maybe could escape the draft that the war would, you know, wrap up before now, are thinking that they could get swept up into it. And, you know, two of the three men that I spoke with, were living

in the Odessa area. And Odessa is a place where it does occasionally get hit by missiles, but it is far from the front line. But things have changed. Things have changed over recent months. And you have videos circulating on social media showing recruitment officers drafting people at gyms, at malls. There's even a video of recruitment officers at a ski resort. And I think people are hearing anecdotally from friends, from acquaintances about people they know being drafted and eventually being sent to the front line, sometimes with, you know, maybe a few weeks of training. And the one gentleman that I spoke to would only let us identify him by his first name, Vladimir. He said that he was taking a securitist route to work because he didn't want to have to walk by the draft office. He would change his patterns.

As you walk down the street, they can safely take you, throw you into a car, take you to the military registration and enlistment office, and send you to serve. Well, I don't want to kill anyone. I want to live in peace. You know, there are stories of people hiding out, not spending a lot of time out in public because they just don't want to run into a conscription officer. And I think there just is a real, there's a sense of exhaustion. And I think that was really apparent throughout all the conversations.

I think we're expecting it to be a hard year for Ukraine, just thinking about the difficulty getting support and funding for weaponry in the U.S., especially, you know, with that in mind, what are Ukrainians, what are Moldovans expecting in terms of this phenomenon? Like, this isn't going to stop anytime soon. No. And in fact, the officials in Moldova say that they are seeing more and more men, and they expect that number to increase as, you know, the conversations and the mobilization campaign does. And mobilization has never stopped in Ukraine since the beginning of the war. But what you have happening now is this very public discussion about mobilizing as many as half a million more soldiers. And it is a very divisive issue. It's dividing, you know, Ukraine's politicians,

you have President Volodymyr Zelensky, who says that he doesn't, he doesn't think it's possible, he doesn't think it's feasible, not even, you know, financially possible for Ukraine to do that. But you have his top general, who says that Ukraine needs this number of people on the front line to be able to seize momentum and push Russia back from these occupied territories. And so it is a very divisive issue. And as this is going on, you've had the parliament and lawmakers working on this mobilization bill. And the point of this bill is to try to, you know, broaden the reach of mobilization and also punish those who've tried to evade service. And so one of the things they're

looking at doing is lowering the age of conscription from 27 to 25. So the right now, the earliest, you know, people under 27 can't be drafted into the military, but if you're 18 and up, you can voluntarily enlist. So they're looking at changing that. And they're also looking at putting more punishments in place for those who've tried to dodge the draft, allowing the courts to freeze assets and not letting people apply for licenses, drive vehicles, that kind of thing. And as I said, it is a really contentious issue that is even dividing lawmakers. So, you know, we've been talking, obviously, about people who are trying to leave, who've decided that it isn't worth risking their lives

to stay and fight. You also spoke with some guys who are grappling with the same fears, but they've decided to stay in Ukraine. I guess I'm curious what they told you. Yeah, and I think that's important context, because when we're talking about these numbers of men fleeing, I mean, 25,000 sounds like a lot, but obviously, it pairs in comparison to the number of men who are still in the country. And I connected with a young man named Dmytro Chuzensky, and he's a political scientist living in western Ukraine, in fact, in a city that's not far from the Romanian border. And he was interesting because he was actually out of the country in the initial weeks of the invasion. He was in Hungary taking part in a election observation mission. And he said that he had a lot of his friends tell him, don't come back, stay away. You have this kind of golden ticket. Now you're outside of the country, stay there.

And he decided to come back and he registered at the military registration office, which men are required to do. And he basically says that he could be conscripted at any time. He knows that, but he's kind of made peace with it just because he doesn't think Ukraine has any other kind of option. What do you expect? That we have such a massive invasion and Ukraine, like, no martial law? No, look, it's not a movie. It's not the Hollywood stuff. Basically, he says, if it's not martial law, if the government doesn't compel men,

because that's who we're talking about here, men to stay and fight for the country, who's going to? This is the reality we live in. Yes, you prepare yourself, you know, every day. Right now, you know, mentally, I'm more or less, OK, so I will be drafted. This is this is the life. It is what it is. And so that was the point that he really wanted to to impart.

And he said, of course, he's scared. Anyone would be scared to go to the front line and fight. But he said that doesn't mean that all the men in Ukraine are thinking of packing up and heading out. Bri, it's really amazing reporting you've done. I really appreciate you coming on and telling me about it. Absolutely. You're welcome. All right, that's it for today. I'm Damon Fairless.

Thanks for listening to FrontBurner. I'll talk to you tomorrow. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.