LONDON, November 17. /TASS/. About 20,000 Ukrainian men, drafted during the mobilization, fled the country, the BBC reported citing information on illegal border crossings into neighboring states - Hungary, Moldova, Poland, Romania and Slovakia - between February, 2022, and August 31, 2023.
According to the report, 21,000 more Ukrainian men attempted to leave the country but were detained by security agencies. Out of these 21,000, 14,000 people intended to cross the border on foot or across the water, while others planned to leave Ukraine using forged documents, allegedly confirming a serious medical condition.
Head of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on national security and presidential representative in the parliament Fyodor Venislavskiy called this problem very serious.
"The government realizes that this phenomenon is not isolated and that it is widespread. But unfortunately, I would emphasize that corruption is very resilient," he said in an interview for the BBC. Meanwhile, he opined that the number of people fleeing the draft remains low compared to overall draft figures.
"I am convinced that the resilience and readiness of Ukrainians to defend their independence, sovereignty and freedom is 95-99%," Venislavskiy said. "Those who try to avoid mobilization are about 1-5%. They are definitely not critical to the defense of Ukraine."
The BBC noted that it is currently unclear what fate awaits those who fled the mobilization, should they return to Ukraine. Meanwhile, Venislavskiy claimed that prosecuting them after the fighting ends would not be in Ukraine’s national interests.