MOSCOW, November 14. /TASS/. Roughly 90% of Ukrainian military personnel deployed at the front consist of residents of villages and small towns mobilized against their will, a commander of a Ukrainian mortar battery, Miroslav Borisenko, said.
"They are, of course, residents of small towns and villages, 90-plus percent of them. Almost all of them were conscripted and drafted [forcibly]," he said on a live broadcast, an excerpt of which is provided by the Ukrainian Strana newspaper.
According to Borisenko, there are "almost no" residents of major cities among the forcibly mobilized, although in 2022 the "social composition was entirely different" in the Ukrainian armed forces. "I think there are no draft evaders in rural areas anymore, as they have nowhere to hide there. The evaders are hiding in the cities, they are all there," he added. "Those who hide from mobilization do not live in mud huts somewhere in the woods, they do not hide in the mountains. They live in Kiev, Odessa and Dnepr (formerly Dnepropetrovsk - TASS)."
General mobilization was announced in Ukraine in February 2022 and has been extended several times since, with the authorities doing everything possible so that draft-age men cannot evade military service. Videos of forceful mobilization and clashes between citizens and military recruiters in various cities are constantly circulating on Ukrainian social media. Meanwhile, men liable for military service are trying to evade military recruitment officers in any way possible, often risking their lives. On May 18, a law on tougher mobilization rules came into force in Ukraine. In recent months, however, the speed of replenishment of the Ukrainian armed forces' ranks has once again slowed down, leading to a critical shortage of manpower. As a result, military recruitment officers have intensified raids on public areas to detain men, resorting to even greater use of force.