MOSCOW, March 18. /TASS/. Ukrainian border guards have detained a draft dodger who in an attempt to leave the country illegally traveled 750 kilometers to the border, the Ukrainian border guard service has said.
The man tried to illegally cross into Romania.
"The movement of an unidentified person towards the neighboring country was noticed by border guards, who detained him 350 meters away from the border. The man was using a bicycle, which he had bought in Nikolaev 750 kilometers away," the border guard service said on its Telegram channel.
Since February 2022, Ukraine has announced and repeatedly extended general mobilization, with the country's authorities doing their utmost to prevent men of conscription age from evading military service. They are prohibited from traveling abroad. Summonses are handed out at public administration institutions, on the streets, in shopping centers and on public transport vehicles. Even those who are unfit for service can be enlisted. On February 7, the Verkhovna Rada passed in the first reading a bill on toughening the rules of mobilization, which provides for limiting the rights of evaders, introducing electronic summonses and giving the police the powers to detain them and take them to military recruitment offices.
According to Ukrainian media, men have been trying to evade mobilization by all means, staying away from home for months, trying to leave the country using forged certificates or illegally, often risking of their lives. Earlier on Monday, the state border service said another Ukrainian died in an attempt to cross the Tisa River to Romania. According to the border guards, it was a 22nd Ukrainian who lost his life while trying to cross the river.