Mandatory Conscription Is Bringing The War Home For Thousands Of Ukrainians

Photo: Kiev investment manager Andriy Gerus may be drafted any day. Volodymyr Verbyany

Ukraine's Military Draft Brings War Home for Thousands -- Bloomberg

The knock on the door for Andriy Gerus came on a Monday morning in July. Fresh from getting his MBA in London, Gerus, a managing director at Ukrainian investment company Concorde Capital, was preparing to take his baby for a stroll in the pleasant Holosiyevo district of Kiev. Instead, the surprise visitor handed him orders to report to the Ukrainian army’s commissariat, the agency in charge of the draft. Gerus says his heart raced. He knew next to nothing about firearms. “I imagined myself with a gun, marching,” Gerus, 32, says over drinks in a cafe in central Kiev. When he had calmed down, he headed to the commissariat. He will probably be drafted into the army within days. “Everyone has two choices,” Gerus says. “To obey Ukrainian law, go with your conscience, and prepare to be mobilized or avoid joining the army by skipping town and risking three to five years of prison. I prefer the first choice.”



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My Comment: My family and friends who live in Ukraine are dreading these notices. No one that I know has been called up yet .... but they know many who have been, and all of these conscripts are going reluctantly. Everyone knows that the conflict in eastern Ukraine is a "meat-grinder", and it is a conflict that will probably go on for a long time producing a daily toll of dead and wounded. Case in point .... the Ukraine government is saying that since the start of the war in April, .... the army has lost 363 soldiers, and 1,434 have been wounded. My contact in the Ukraine government is telling me that these stats are not correct .... the unofficial stats of killed is actually double (his stats includes border-guards and police), and these totals do not include the militias that have gone to eastern Ukraine to fight alongside the Ukraine military. As to the wounded .... he tells me that this number is two to three times higher than the official rate. There is no official government tally on rebel and civilian casualties.