A father tries to cross the border by hiding in his car to avoid forced conscription
They caught the last one yesterday. With his wife, young son and their mother, they tried to cross the border. To avoid forced conscription, the man in the back seat had built a box between stuffed animals and diapers in which to hide. With his wife driving the small car, he hoped to go unnoticed and continue to look after the family after crossing the border. But the controls are very strict. And the military wanted to look for the good. When they saw the man huddled under the dolls, they took out their guns and a phone. Armed with guns, they ordered him out while they filmed the scene on camera. Now these images are in the public domain. And they sound like a warning. And between family and country, men between the ages of 18 and 60 have no choice.
Where the rubble becomes a ditch, this side of the Dnieper, when the building that remained unchanged in Soviet times heralds the entrance to the city of Orthodox monasteries and sanctuaries, there are those who won’t take up arms anyway. “I know that our selfdefense is and that I will be forgiven even if I have to kill the enemy to defend my family. But I won’t take the gun”.
Yuri’s stubborn nonviolence in the ruins of the outer belt of a Kiev that the Russian army showed what it might do if it set foot on the cobblestone streets of the historic center has nothing to do with vague pacifism. “I have nothing against pacifists,” he says as he prepares for another night in the basement, which everyone calls bunkers more to boost morale than the real endurance of the supporting structures. “I just don’t want to shoot anyone, I don’t want to kill, but I don’t want to die either,” he adds. However, there may come a time when you must make a choice, we caution you: either your life or that of the people before you. “Maybe I’ll throw a rock at him or I’ll be so scared I’ll be paralyzed waiting for him to kill me,” he replies. “In the meantime he adds I’m trying to give a helping hand to the guys who are going to fight. I explain to them that they are not obliged to do this, but if they do, they must do it for the sake of our freedom, not out of hatred.
The line of fear is at least as subtle and insidious as that which separates a coward from a sniper. It’s hard to say that both are right. But on the streets of Kyiv, Odessa, Ulman and every other moat that has been observed in recent weeks, we have not found contempt for those who do not want to go to war. For example, Olga knows that her husband is exempt from the fight. He chose it. No weapons. But it’s not that she feels so calm. He’s a civilian rescue worker, one of those who arrive after the shockwave in the station wagon, bought on hire and converted into a firstaid truck, to collect the stillbeating hearts or collect the parts of those hit by the blast.
There are fathers who live hidden in the most remote huts. Between hay bales and abandoned cattle. They don’t even light the fire so as not to attract attention. They accompanied the family to the border. They have already won their war by saving their wife and children. They also tried to bribe the gendarmes, but they couldn’t do anything. The men are thrown back to the front, but not all have the hero’s fire in their eyes.
To use the categories of the War Chronicles, one would say they are draft evaders. Or deserters. “Alessia and I had nothing says the boy who has been married for three weeks . We got engaged and got a job, then a house and finally got married.” They tried to cross the border into Chisinau, Moldova together. But the Ukrainian policewoman blocked him: “You have to fight for your homeland!”. Nobody will ever be able to describe Alessia’s tears. She stayed too, she didn’t want to leave him alone. She asks him not to join the militias. “Then we’ll fight together,” she says, almost threateningly. But he would not forgive himself for dragging her in front of the enemy. He feels like a coward, a traitor from Kyiv. Then he says goodbye with one of those phrases that would look good in books: “I won’t fight, I have to protect her. Ukraine is my homeland, Alessia is my homeland”. And to write that he’s a deserter, we just can’t.