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Al Jazeera
3 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
Ukraine's conscription crisis: Alleged abuse leads to protests, emigration
Names marked with an asterisk* have been changed to protect identities. Kyiv, Ukraine – Artem* is determined to never join Ukraine's armed forces. 'If I ever fight, I won't fight for Ukraine,' the 29-year-old from the westernmost Zakarpattia region told Al Jazeera. A 'conscription patrol' of three police and two military officers rounded him up in late June as he was leaving the Sunday mass at a cathedral in Uzhhorod, the regional capital. Artem had paperwork proving that he was the only caretaker of his disabled, ailing 66-year-old mother and therefore could not be drafted. But the patrol detained and brought him to a conscription office, where two officers took Artem to a separate room. He claimed they beat him and tried to force him to 'volunteer' for military service. When he refused, he said they tied and blindfolded him and four more reluctant detainees and took them to a forest outside Uzhhorod. One of the officers ordered them at gunpoint to run to what turned out to be a fence on the Slovakian border, Artem claimed. Another officer videotaped the men's 'attempt to illegally cross the border', which is punishable by up to four years in jail, and said they could 'negotiate their release fee', Artem claimed. He said that his family paid $2,000 for his release and another $15,000 for a fake permit to leave Ukraine as men of fighting age, 25 to 60, are not allowed to travel abroad. Artem, who spoke via a messaging app from an Eastern European nation, asked to withhold his real name, personal details and the location of the conscription office he claims to have been beaten in. A deepening crisis Al Jazeera was unable to independently verify all of the details of Artem's story, but some of his allegations corroborate with other cases of conscription-related coercion and corruption in Ukraine amid a dire shortage of front-line troops in the fight against Russia. Between January and June, the Ukrainian Human Rights Ombudsman's office received more than 2,000 complaints about the use of force by conscription patrols that consist of military and police officers. In one case, patrol officers hit a bicyclist in the central Rivne region with their car in January after he refused to pull over. They beat and tear-gassed him to deliver him to the conscription office and 'illegally mobilise', investigators said. Ultimately, the patrolling officers volunteered to go to the front line to avoid assault charges, they said. On August 1, police in the central city of Vinnytsia used tear gas to disperse a crowd that tried to storm a conscription office and release some 100 men that they claimed had been detained illegally. Meanwhile, a privileged few abuse their position to dodge the draft. In October 2024, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy dismissed the prosecutor general after several public prosecutors obtained fake disability papers that also entitled them to sizeable 'pensions'. In January, Oleh Druz – the chief psychiatrist for Ukraine's armed forces, who could declare any conscript unfit for service – was arrested. He now faces up to 10 years in jail for 'illegal enrichment'. Since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in 2022, Druz reportedly bought several luxurious apartments, two plots of land and several BMW cars – and kept $152,000 and 34,000 euros ($40,000) in cash at home. For more than two years, conscription patrols have been combing public places, subway stations, nightclubs and even crashing wedding parties in search of men of fighting age – 25 to 60, more than a dozen witnesses from all over Ukraine told Al Jazeera. They tour regions outside their official jurisdiction. 'Fake patrols' of burly uniformed men then blackmail those they catch. A release fee is $400 or more, but those who refuse to pay up are handed over to real conscription offices, the witnesses say. Several conscription officers are ex-servicemen who often suffer from PTSD, despise draft dodgers and have no qualms about humiliating, abusing and beating them, they say. Hundreds of thousands of men are understood to be in hiding, causing a dire shortage in the workforce. Across the country, there are far fewer male construction workers, farmhands, cooks and taxi drivers. Men whose military papers are in order prefer to move around with a witness who can, if needed, videotape an encounter with a conscription patrol. 'I drive around with my mom because there are too many checkpoints anywhere I go,' Ferentz, an ethnic Hungarian taxi driver in Uzhhorod, told Al Jazeera as his mother smiled from the front seat of his old Skoda. Meanwhile, a societal division is growing. Current or former Ukrainian servicemen and their families are increasingly indignant about how draft dodgers justify their reluctance to enlist. 'I broke up with many female friends who defend their husbands' or boyfriends' right not to fight,' Hanna Kovaleva, whose husband Albert volunteered in 2022, told Al Jazeera. 'This [mindset] is disgusting – 'let someone else die while I'm hiding behind my wife's skirt.'' Preemptive emigration Before he turns 17, Bogdan* is leaving Ukraine – but not in search of better living conditions. He lives in central Kyiv in a three-bedroom apartment with his parents, goes to a private school and spends weekends in a spacious country house. But his parents do not want him to be conscripted. Even though it could only happen only when Bogdan turns 25, they say they are not taking ay risks. 'With this chaos on the front line, you don't just want your kid to die because of his officer's mistake,' his father Dmitry* told Al Jazeera. On September 1, Bogdan will start school in Prague, where his aunt lives. Crushed and heartbroken – he just started dating a classmate – he says he has no choice. 'I know I sound very unpatriotic, but I don't want to end up rotting in a ditch,' he told Al Jazeera. In January, United States President Donald Trump's administration urged Kyiv to lower the draft age from 25 to 18 – reiterating the previous administration's request. As the average age of a Ukrainian serviceman has reached 45 from 42 three years ago, more and more Ukrainians with military backgrounds agree with the request. Alternatively, men aged 18 and older could serve in a 'labour army' that manufactures drones and other war-related items, according to Lieutenant General Ihor Romanenko, ex-deputy head of the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. He said that mobilisation should involve all men of fighting age without exceptions – while Ukraine's economy should be 'reformatted' to primarily serve the army's needs. 'If unpopular strategic decisions at home are not implemented, the situation only gets worse. No foreigners will fight for us,' Romanenko told Al Jazeera.
Al Jazeera
19 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
The Take: The witnesses of the first nuclear bomb
What is the threat of nuclear war today? With tensions on the rise, a new telling of firsthand accounts of the creation of the atomic bomb and the Manhattan Project shows the echoes of those decisions today. Eighty years after the US bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we hear an oral history from the people who built the bomb in secrecy, to those who suffered its consequences. In this episode: Garett Graff (@vermontgmg) – Journalist and historian Episode credits: This episode was produced by Tamara Khandaker, Sonia Bhagat, and Diana Ferrero, with Manny Panaretos, Marcos Bartolomé, Melanie Marich, Kisaa Zehra, Marya Khan, and our guest host, Kevin Hirten. It was edited by Kylene Kiang. Our sound designer is Alex Roldan. Our video editors are Hisham Abu Salah and Mohannad al-Melhem. Alexandra Locke is The Take's executive producer. Ney Alvarez is Al Jazeera's head of audio. Connect with us: @AJEPodcasts on X, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube
Al Jazeera
2 days ago
- Al Jazeera
Hiroshima marks 80 years since atomic bombing
Thousands of people have gathered in Hiroshima to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the world's first wartime use of a nuclear bomb – as survivors, officials and representatives from 120 countries and territories marked the milestone with renewed calls for disarmament. The western Japanese city was flattened on August 6, 1945, when the United States dropped a uranium bomb, codenamed Little Boy. Roughly 78,000 people were killed instantly. Tens of thousands more would die by the end of the year due to burns and radiation exposure. The attack on Hiroshima, followed three days later by a plutonium bomb dropped on Nagasaki, led to Japan's surrender on August 15 and the end of the second world war. Hiroshima had been chosen as a target partly because its surrounding mountains were believed by US planners to amplify the bomb's force. At Hiroshima's Peace Memorial Park on Wednesday, where the bomb detonated almost directly overhead eight decades ago, delegates from a record number of international countries and regions attended the annual memorial. Reporting from the park, Al Jazeera's Fadi Salameh said the ceremony unfolded in a similar sequence to those of previous years. 'The ceremony procedure is almost the same throughout the years I've been covering it,' Salameh said. 'It starts at eight o'clock with the children and people offering flowers and then water to represent helping the victims who survived the atomic bombing at that time. 'Then at exactly 8:15… a moment of silence. After that, the mayor of Hiroshima reads out the declaration of peace in which they call for the abolition of nuclear weapons around the world,' he added. Schoolchildren from across Japan participated in the 'Promise of Peace' – reading statements of hope and remembrance. This year's ceremony also included a message from the representative of United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, urging global peace. Hiroshima's mayor, Kazumi Matsui, warned of the dangers of rising global militarism, criticising world leaders who argue that nuclear weapons are necessary for national security. 'Among the world's political leaders, there is a growing belief that possessing nuclear weapons is unavoidable in order to protect their own countries,' he said, noting that the United States and Russia still hold 90 percent of the world's nuclear warheads. 'This situation not only nullifies the lessons the international community has learned from the tragic history of the past, but also seriously undermines the frameworks that have been built for peace-building,' he said. 'To all the leaders around the world: please visit Hiroshima and witness for yourselves the reality of the atomic bombing.' Many attendees echoed that call. 'It feels more and more like history is repeating itself,' 71-year-old Yoshikazu Horie told the Reuters news agency. 'Terrible things are happening in Europe … Even in Japan, in Asia, it's going the same way – it's very scary. I've got grandchildren and I want peace so they can live their lives happily.' Survivors of the bombings – known as hibakusha – once faced discrimination over unfounded fears of disease and genetic effects. Their numbers have fallen below 100,000 for the first time this year. Japan maintains a stated commitment to nuclear disarmament, but remains outside the UN treaty banning nuclear weapons.
