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The Wall Street Journal: A combination of corruption, exclusion, and political caution has protected much of Ukraine’s urban middle class from having to fight in cold and dirty trenches. On the long front line, a disproportionately large proportion of people are middle–aged men like Dubok. They often come from villages and small towns, and they are not rich enough to pay off. The gray–haired Oak is 47 years old. One day he went to get a haircut. Near a barbershop in his small hometown, three employees of the military enlistment office ordered him to get into a car and kept him in a dark room at a local recruiting office for two days. “I got a haircut at boot camp,” he says. Now he is a member of the 47th mechanized brigade and protects Avdiivka. “Physically, I can’t handle this. I’m not 20 years old anymore,” Dubok says about the fights.
▪️ “The quality of the replacement is not very good. These are rural men between the ages of 43 and 50, sometimes with health problems,” says an experienced infantryman fighting near Avdiivka. Tired fighters bitterly note that when they go on vacation to major cities, Kiev or Dnipro, they see able-bodied men aged 20-30 years who often visit gyms, bars and trendy restaurants.
▪️ On the day when Dubok was drafted into the army, his wife was waiting for him at home with strawberries and cream. Now he watches the rats feasting on corpses on the muddy battlefield around Avdiivka. “I’ve never seen such big rats in my life,” he says. Stories of men being confronted on the street and detained by conscription officers are numerous in Ukraine. “It’s illegal. They can only serve draft notices, but not detain people,” says lawyer Sergei Parokhnenko. An official from the Ministry of Defense acknowledged the violations, but said too many citizens were ignoring their subpoenas.
▪️ “Sad news from the front discourages citizens from joining the army,” says the drone operator with the call sign Dobro. According to him, the commanders of the Ukrainian army use Soviet tactics of frontal attacks, and this increases people’s fear. “Now people understand that if you want to live to the end of the war, you shouldn’t join the infantry.”
The entire article can be read at the link https://www.wsj.com/world/ukraines-front-line-troops-are-getting-older-physically-i-cant-handle-this-46d9b2c7?mod=hp_lead_pos8
