MOSCOW, April 22. /TASS/. Parents are sending their children under the age of 18 out of Ukraine abroad in fear of a potential expansion of military mobilization in the country, Anna Skorokhod, a lawmaker with the Supreme Rada (Ukrainian parliament), said on Tuesday.
"A terrible thing is underway as children are being moved abroad before they turn 18. Do you realize what consequences Ukraine will have? We will lose an entire generation, and we need to come up with some state guarantee that these children would not be affected," Skorokhod said in an interview with the Ukrainian YouTube channel "Frankly."
"The president should guarantee that there will be no mobilization of the youth under 25 years of age," she added.
A member of the Verkhovna Rada, Maxim Savrasov, announced earlier that lawmakers are working on a draft law that stipulates military registration starting from early adolescence – from 14 years of age, and military enlistment offices will be able to work directly with class teachers to obtain all necessary information about schoolchildren.
Ukrainian mass media have frequently reported that parents are trying to take their school-aged children abroad to save them from future military mobilization. However, if at first it concerned only parents of boys, now it has also affected Ukrainians, who raise daughters, Vladimir Strashko, a director of an online school, said. According to him, this trend has intensified after the emergence of reports regarding possible military mobilization of women.
Since February 2022, Ukraine has implemented and repeatedly extended nationwide mobilization. A new law enacted on May 18, 2024, allows for the drafting of hundreds of thousands more Ukrainians into the military.
Social media increasingly shows videos of forced mobilizations: recruitment officers grabbing men off the streets, from cafes, gyms, and other public spaces and escorting them to draft centers.
Reports of violence at military enlistment offices occasionally surface, with men resorting to various methods to avoid deployment – buying disability or fake university enrollment certificates, or risking their lives to cross borders illegally.