How some Ukrainian men illegally cross the border

Ukrainian border guards detained 11,000 Ukrainians since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion. It is illegal for Ukrainian male citizens of the conscription age to leave the territory of Ukraine without a justified and legitimate cause. Practically that means that most men cannot go abroad. Fearing that they might be mobilized or desperate to find the same well-paid job in Ukraine that they had abroad, hundreds of men try to cross the border illegally. That is, through forests, mountains, and rivers. On March 23, the fifteenth person in 2023 drowned in the swift and cold Tisza River, which forms the Ukrainian-Romanian and Ukrainian-Hungarian border.

Three more men of eligible age for conscription died in the mountains, miscalculating their endurance. According to the border guards, among the men trying to cross the border illegally, there were people from all over Ukraine who did not realize the danger or had never been to the mountains before.

In addition, "intermediaries" who promise to help cross the border for thousands of dollars so as not to scare off their clients do not describe all the risks. It is only when the fugitive approaches the river that he realizes the real danger, but it is too late to retreat.

Those who do not dare to flee Ukraine in this way order forged documents. There are a lot of options - from a certificate from a military medical commission to a wife's death certificate or a birth certificate for a third child. Over the past year, border guards have detected forgeries from more than four thousand men.

To find out more about popular border crossing schemes, hromadske's journalists Mariana Pietsukh and Dmytro Honchar traveled to Zakarpattia to visit the Mukachevo border guard detachment. This 320-kilometer-long section is the most commonly used illegal border crossing.

00:00 intro
00:40 arriving to Zakarpattia
1:18 how one illegal border crosser drowned
1:50 who organizes the illegal transportation of men
2:28 missing persons
3:17 why the mountain river is dangerous
5:21 How the organizers of illegal border crossings deceive the men
6:48 how women visit men hiding in Romania
8:43 What documents for traveling abroad are forged most often?
10:08 Why women are against the ban on men leaving the country and how they smuggle them out
11:56 How do Border Guards detect fake certificates from the military medical commission?
13:28 How many men have already been detained at the border
14:05 how border residents are involved in illegal border crossing schemes
15:25 about the curfew, which was canceled in Zakarpattia, the only Ukrainian region to do so
16:30 meeting of a grandson with a grandfather of "military eligible" age at the border