Ukraine women speaking out: Citizens resisting conscription

The fourth wave of forced conscription in Ukraine is going very poorly for obvious reasons:

First, everybody who wanted to go already went, and many of them have returned disillusioned, or haven't come back at all. The army stories about of lack of food, working weapons and vehicles, and basic human decency, as well complete absence of spare underwear, are all over the internet.

Second, the government has consistently lied to the conscripts, e.g. telling them that they would have to go for three weeks of training, and instead holding them for six months in the trenches.

On May 26th, the president has personally promised 1000 UAH per day to the soldiers, veteran's benefits, and that only volunteers would be sent to the frontlines; in reality, the majority of wounded conscripts can not even prove they've ever served, and none at all have seen the promised money. Now that nobody wants to serve, the president is promising 1000 UAH per day... yet again.

Third, the rapidly deteriorating situation in the country has led to general disillusionment with the "usurpers" in Kiev:

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the "revolution of decency" brought yet another oligarch to the throne - one that not only failed to sell his businesses as promised, but in fact still runs a huge factory in Lipetsk, Russia; the national currency now costs one-third of what it did a year ago, under the "bad" Yanukovich (which now makes Ukrainians by far the poorest people in Europe); and Poroshenko's "free travel to EU by 2015" promises have turned out to be lies... for the 8th time... and he simply promised it again!

This leads to draft-dodging on a massive scale - up to 1.5 million Ukrainian men of military age are estimated to have fled to Russia (which still keeps an open border), and possibly greater numbers went into hiding domestically; overall success of conscription is estimated to be between one-half and one-tenth of those targeted, depending on region.

This is further exacerbated by the fact that the failing state apparatus can no longer exert complete control outside of major cities, leading to widespread instances of small-town locals beating recruiters, burning conscription notices, or simply renting buses and all men leaving to Russia.

The most extreme case as of yesterday was in a small town by Odessa, where local ethnic Moldovans were enraged by a recruiter showing up with armed soldiers - hundreds of enraged locals surrounded the three soldiers, took away the Kalashnikovs, and burned the conscription papers, while the recruiter was narrowly rescued by local officials.

The video above is a fairly typical instance of the same; while in big cities, anti-war activists are sometimes jailed for "treason", such tactics in smaller, tight-knit communities can lead to the conflict spreading to the rest of Ukraine ; therefore, the government seems to be content just grabbing those that don't resist and leaving the rest alone, which obviously provides an incentive for more villages and small towns to refuse conscription.

Chomsky: We Are All – Fill in the Blank.

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