Servicemen from the Territorial Recruitment Centre, together with the police, check documents on the streets of Kyiv last week.Olga Ivashchenko/The Globe and Mail
Volodymyr was out jogging around the lake near his home, as he did almost every morning, when he noticed a van slowly driving alongside him. He immediately understood what was going on. It was the summer of 2024, and the Ukrainian military was in the middle of a conscription drive. Volodymyr was a man of service age but wasn’t wearing a uniform. He sped up, and so did the van.
The fit, broad-shouldered 31-year-old escaped from the men he suspected were conscription officers by cutting through a park. But afterward, he stopped going for his morning jog.
Two years later, he wears a green uniform when he goes outside − though not that of the Ukrainian military. To avoid being drafted, Volodymyr used his connections to secure a job at one of the country’s other security services.
As such, Volodymyr isn’t counted among the two million Ukrainian men that Defence Minister Mikhailo Fedorov says are “wanted” for avoiding military service, a problem that has led to a growing manpower shortage on the front lines. But Volodymyr still sees himself as a draft dodger. (The Globe and Mail is not using the last names of those avoiding conscription because they could be targeted for retribution.)
While Russia has an army of more than two million soldiers, Ukraine has an estimated 800,000 soldiers currently enlisted.Olga Ivashchenko/The Globe and Mail
All Ukrainian men between the ages of 25 and 60 are eligible for the draft and are prohibited from leaving the country unless they have an exemption on health or other grounds. Last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced pay raises for soldiers – a minimum of US$1,000 a month and 10 times that, on average, for front-line service – and fixed-length contracts, in an attempt to make military service more attractive.
Many of the estimated 800,000 soldiers currently enlisted have been serving since the first days of the Russian invasion in February, 2022. Some have been fighting even longer, having joined the army during the eight-year proxy war against Moscow-backed separatists that preceded the full-scale invasion.
Ukraine’s fight is longer than the First World War, and looks similar in the trenches
Russia, for its part, has an army of more than two million soldiers. Despite massive battlefield losses − more than 350,000 Russian soldiers have reportedly died over the course of the war − Moscow has been able to sustain the invasion by luring a reported 30,000 recruits a month with upfront payments plus salaries of US$2,600 a month, double the average wage in the country.
Russia has also relied on troops from its ally North Korea, and recruiters have deceptively lured thousands of Indians and Africans to Russia with promises of good-paying jobs, only to transfer them quickly to front-line positions in Ukraine.
While Ukraine doesn’t disclose its battlefield losses, the conscription shortfall has meant fewer breaks for soldiers in the field, since commanders are unable to rotate them and replace them with fresh troops.
Volodymyr’s group of friends provides a snapshot of the problems Ukraine is facing. Among seven of his male friends who joined the military, four have been killed in action and a fifth was badly injured.
Seven other friends left the country early in the war and have no plans to return. He and six others are going to whatever lengths they must – from paying bribes to hiding inside their homes – to avoid having to fight.
Volodymyr says he and a friend actually applied to join the military early in the war. At the time, Ukraine’s draft offices were overwhelmed with volunteers, and Volodymyr and his friend were told to go home and wait until they were needed.
But Volodymyr – who ran a liquor store before the war – no longer wants to serve. He believes Ukraine has little chance of defeating Russia’s larger military and thinks the country should make peace, even if it means conceding territory, rather than forcing more and more men to fight.
“When military men are in charge of the country, there will always be war,” he said in an interview at a waterside restaurant in the central city of Dnipro, referring to the martial law Mr. Zelensky declared on the first day of the invasion. “Why should we fight? Why should we live constantly in war? When will we build something? When will we live a peaceful life?”
Ukrainian men between the ages of 25 and 60 are eligible for the draft and are prohibited from leaving the country unless they have an exemption.Olga Ivashchenko/The Globe and Mail
Oleksandr is one of Volodymyr’s friends who stopped going outside in order to avoid being drafted. The tall, thin 32-year-old told The Globe that he hasn’t left his two-room apartment since Nov. 11, when he and his wife went to a nearby shopping mall.
While they were out, he received a message that another acquaintance had been grabbed off the street by conscription officers and had since stopped responding to text messages. “It was pretty scary,” Oleksandr recalled. “There was a person, and then there was no person.”
Since then, every day has been almost the same. He wakes up and makes his way to his desk, where he works remotely for a bank. His wife takes their three-year-old son to kindergarten, grabs some groceries and tries to avoid answering questions about where Oleksandr is.
“My wife and my mother actually forbade me to go outside,” he said in a video interview from his home. “They say it’s better to be stuck inside an apartment than to be buried in a trench.”
Both Oleksandr and Volodymyr said they would like to leave Ukraine but are afraid they would get arrested at the border. Both have heard stories of how draft dodgers are sometimes beaten by conscription officers and then sent to the most dangerous military positions.
Andrii is a senior officer at the Territorial Recruitment Centre in Bucha. He says many conscription officers are veterans themselves, some of whom were wounded in combat.Olga Ivashchenko/The Globe and Mail
Dmytro Lubinets, the country’s human-rights ombudsman, reported to parliament last month that his office had received more than 6,000 complaints about Ukraine’s Territorial Recruitment Centres over the course of 2025.
“Unfortunately, the shameful practice of using balaclavas, unlawful use of force and beatings continues. We have even reached the point where civilians of Ukraine are being killed in the premises of the TRCs,” Mr. Lubinets said. “Unlike many who publicly comment that we cannot change this system in the face of full-scale aggression, I categorically disagree.”
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Andrii, a senior officer at the Territorial Recruitment Centre in Bucha – a city near Kyiv that is synonymous with the worst abuses committed by the invading Russian army – said there is a deep social divide in the country between those who are fighting and those who refuse to fight. That tension, he said, leads to the incidents of alleged abuse by military recruiters. (Ukrainian soldiers are not allowed to give their full names when speaking to the media.)
Andrii said many conscription officers are veterans themselves, some of whom were wounded in combat. “When a serviceman tries to serve a draft notice to someone on the street who does not want to serve, of course such encounters can become emotional.”
Recruitment, Andrii said, has gotten easier in recent weeks as news from the front line has turned in Ukraine’s favour. After three years of grinding Russian advances, Ukraine has liberated more territory than it has lost since the start of 2026. But Andrii said the army still needs more men to hold the front line.
Inna Sovsun, a member of parliament whose husband has been serving in the Ukrainian military since the start of the war, said she’s concerned by the reports of abusive tactics by conscription officers. But she said those evading the draft have created an even greater injustice.
“If more people are scared or are unwilling to join, then it means that my partner – and many other thousands of soldiers and officers who have been serving for 4½ years now − have to bear this burden,” Ms. Sovsun said in an interview. “That’s very demoralizing and very unfair.”