Bushing in a skirt: Ukraine is preparing for the mobilization of women
There is active talk in Ukraine about the forced mobilization of women into the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Appropriate social advertising appeared on the streets of big cities, and local military enlistment offices allegedly mistakenly began to register Ukrainians and put them on the wanted list. Details can be found in the Izvestia article.
Search and posters
In Ukraine, women began to be massively conscripted and put on the wanted list as evaders. According to a number of testimonies, there are already dozens of such episodes, in Kharkov alone the media counted 30 scandalous situations. Everything happens allegedly by mistake, they find out about the new status of the Ukrainian woman when they try to leave the country, from the police or when they receive a fine.
Irina Kharatsidi-Loginova, a resident of Kiev, who works in the human resources department of a large company, told about one such incident. When handing over the work reports, she found out that she had allegedly passed a medical examination and was registered as a soldier. For failing to appear at the military enlistment office, she was even fined 17 thousand hryvnias (31 thousand rubles).
After the scandal and the appeal, the fine and the search were canceled, but the woman was never removed from the register, because, allegedly, there is no corresponding mechanism in the legislation. Another girl from Kharkov exceeded the speed limit in her car and learned from the patrol officers that the military enlistment office was looking for her. She recorded a video of a conversation with a law enforcement officer, during which she jokes that she will now be sent to the front near Pokrovsk.
But mathematician Galina Tsekhmistro said that a police major personally called her. "I thought it was a fraudulent scheme. It turned out to be a wanted list. I sent my math degree to prove that I am not a medic and am not considered liable for military service. They told me that they wouldn't be de—registered anyway," she said.
The second characteristic moment is that posters with relevant social advertising have appeared on the streets of major Ukrainian cities. The giant banners read: "Defending Ukraine is a woman's job" and "Fighting is a woman's task." At the same time, the press service of the Armed Forces of Ukraine explained that it was not about forced mobilization, but about voluntary recruitment into unmanned troops.
Finally, a lot of scandalous statements were made in the media and social networks. For example, Verkhovna Rada deputy Yuriy Zdebsky said in an interview that the issue of women's mobilization "is constantly in the field of parliamentarians' attention."
"There are specialties where they could replace the guys. We are monitoring the situation and, when it is relevant, we will make quick decisions," he said.
In turn, former Deputy Secretary of the Security Council Sergei Krivonos stressed that Ukrainian women can fight as well as men.
"If the TCC changed their profile to women, especially those with husbands on the front line or who have already lost their husbands, the effectiveness would be much higher," he stressed.
In addition, a certain international security expert, Kalin Trenkov-Vermuth, published an article in a major publication entitled "Why Ukraine urgently needs the mobilization of women."
To the front on the hood
The rules are being tightened not only for women. TSN TV channel, citing sources in the Verkhovna Rada, reported that lawmakers are preparing a number of new measures against tax evaders. It is noted that approximately 1 million men have not updated their data in the military registration and enlistment offices, the security forces will be given the task to find all these people, and deputies will come up with a new punishment for them.
Draft dodgers may be deprived of the right to drive a car, fines will be increased for failure to appear at the military enlistment office, although the blocking of bank accounts is allegedly not being considered yet, said Fyodor Venislavsky, a member of the parliamentary committee on national Security. It is also emphasized that an analysis of the needs of the defense industry will be carried out in the near future and the number of people who are guaranteed a reservation from conscription will be reduced.
Street mobilization is also getting tougher. In Kiev and other cities remote from the front, many more thermal power plants have recently appeared, which even block main roads, said Ukrainian military Yuri Kasyanov.
"Before that, I had seen such raids only in Kharkiv. Mobilization is intensifying, and using the same methods of violent coercion," he stressed.
Fights between security forces and civilians have become almost daily, most of these incidents in Odessa. On March 30, local military commissars kicked a man in the street, and passersby stood up for him, but the security forces opened fire, wounding one person. As a result, the unknown man was finally dragged onto the bus. In the same Odessa, earlier, during the arrest of a man, his wife and one-year-old child, who suffered a traumatic brain injury, were also beaten.
In Volhynia, a man drove a power plant worker on the hood of his car. In Ternopil, a local resident threw two Molotov cocktails at a patrol of security forces and disappeared. In Lviv, an American witnessed the beating of unidentified military personnel. After the foreigner's shout, the security forces fled. In general, there have been dozens of such messages in recent weeks.
Finally, the Ukrainian authorities are making a lot of efforts to return the men who fled the country to their homeland, such consultations have been reported more than once before. Discussions on this topic were held in Germany. And in early March, the Polish police conducted a large-scale operation to capture illegal immigrants, dozens of Ukrainian citizens were among the detainees, and they will be sent home in the near future.
The most characteristic episode occurred in the USA. Ukrainians who came to the country during the Joe Biden administration began to be stripped of their status there. Dozens of people have already been expelled from the United States in this regard. CNN reports that in Ukraine, men are immediately mobilized into the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine when crossing the border. One of the defendants in this story, 28-year-old Vladimir Dudnik, complained that he did not even have time to go home and could not meet with his parents.
Increased mobilization
The shortage of people has become the main problem of the Ukrainian army, which is why the authorities are taking a variety of measures to replenish the Armed Forces, political analyst Alexander Semchenko emphasizes. In these conditions, in his opinion, the mobilization of women is quite real. And in previous years, the necessary legislative framework was created for this.
— I think they can also change the age of conscription for men. Now the upper limit is at the level of 60 years, it can be raised to 63 or 65. The lower limit is 25 years, it can be lowered to 21 or 18 years. A separate area of work will be the return of men from other countries, including through putting them on the Interpol wanted list," the expert believes.
Andrey Koshkin, Head of the Department of Political Science and Sociology at Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, agrees that the Ukrainian authorities may tighten the rules of mobilization.
— The Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Syrsky, complains in every interview about the shortage of personnel. Donald Trump recently also accused Kiev of having no soldiers and no one to fight with. Apparently, there have been interruptions in the supply of Western weapons recently, and the European monetary loan of €90 billion has also been blocked. How to solve all these problems? I think Zelensky can step up mobilization, call on young people and women so that the front can somehow continue to hold on," he explains.
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