They stand in a small crowd outside the large metal gate, tense and waiting in the dark. Most look weighed down, both by stress and by overstuffed plastic bags — all for men who may soon be heading off to war.
“Where’s my father? Where’s my father?” a boy in a camouflage coat asks, leaning on the gray gate. As his mother tells him to be patient, two women comfort each other nearby.
Svitlana Vakar hovers at the back of the group, crying and sniffling as she holds the dimpled hand of Maksym, her 2-year-old grandson. Wiping her eyes, she adjusts Maksym’s red “Paw Patrol” puffer jacket to protect him from the winter cold, then plants a long kiss on top of his head.
Maksym’s father had been picked up by recruiting officers that morning, on his way to work. He was able to send his mother a message: He had been taken to this military gathering point on the edge of Kyiv — along with dozens of other men picked up that day around the Ukrainian capital. Brought in for processing, they would be held overnight then shipped out in the morning for basic military training as recruits.
“Why take him like a dog? Not allowing him to say goodbye to family, to kids,” Ms. Vakar said, starting to sob.
At the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, men flocked to the recruitment centers. But after three years of grinding war, the well of volunteers has run dry. Now, men wait for their draft papers to arrive before appearing at recruiting centers — or try to avoid being found.
Faced with severe troop shortages and heavy casualties, Ukraine’s military has been chasing draft dodgers to help replenish the ranks. In some cases, that means pulling men off the street or off buses and taking them to recruiting points in the clothes they are wearing: jeans, suits, gym shorts. It happens so quickly that the men can’t always immediately call to let loved ones know what has happened or where they’ve been taken, families say.
Some are brought to this isolated facility, where, for a few hours before dawn and at dusk, friends and family trek to say goodbye — and to deliver essentials for the road ahead.
Loss is everywhere in Ukraine, where faces of the fallen cover billboards and memorials stretch down city streets. Amid all the sacrifice, sympathy for those who avoid serving can be in short supply. There are nearly a million people fighting in Ukraine’s military — they have children and families, too.
The uncomfortable, pre-emptive grief on display at the gates is yet another facet of the widespread angst Ukrainians live with. It was unclear how many of the men inside had ignored draft notices; some relatives mentioned paperwork issues around exemptions or cited bureaucratic mistakes.
Ms. Vakar said that she had “dropped everything” when her son Artem, 32, messaged that morning in January to say that he had been picked up and taken to the recruiting center.
“What reaction can a mother have?” she said. She threw his West Blue cigarettes, along with some potatoes and eggs, into a white plastic bag, then rushed with Maksym to the gathering point, where they stood waiting anxiously with other families in the dark.
Every few minutes, a door in the gate would clank open. A soldier would poke his head out to call a name — “Roman,” “Oleg” — and someone in the crowd would hustle forward.
More people kept arriving as the clock moved toward 6:45 p.m. Soon there were between 15 and 20 waiting.
The contents of the bags they carried spoke to how suddenly the men had been taken. Phone chargers. Socks. Underwear. Toothbrushes. A warmer coat. Many at the gate also held plastic containers with food — borscht, macaroni — to help ease the abrupt transition to military life.
Ms. Vakar fed Maksym a snack at 6:50. Soon after, “Vakar” was called. They were led through the gate, past the soldier with the list of names and another with an assault rifle, to a small strip of asphalt with benches. That’s where she was able to see her son, for about 20 minutes.
The gate kept clanking, letting visitors back out. Their bags now empty, many left with tears streaming down their faces.
The center sits at the end of a winding road, far from any public transport. Some people paced as they waited for taxis; others made calls to relay that husbands or boyfriends had gone missing — only to be found at the recruitment site.
Anya, 38, who had come looking for her husband, said it had taken her an hour to get to the closest bus stop, then another hour to find the gate. She asked that only her first name be used out of a fear of retaliation. When she arrived, out of breath, she rushed up to the gate but was told to wait.
Others were still arriving, and some carried duffels. More than one looked bewildered, asking “Where do I go?” or “How does the line work?”
Time was running out on what might be a last chance to say goodbye. In the mornings, large yellow buses roll through the gates with signs reading “Ukrainian Armed Forces!” Visitors can come from 6:30 a.m. to 8 a.m. — after that, the buses take the recruits away for 45 days of basic training, followed by assignment to a unit.
More men are brought in by van to replace them throughout the day. And so the evening visiting window, from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m., fills with relatives of those picked up just hours earlier.
Not all visitors make it in time — a man and a woman who arrived at 8:14 p.m. were turned away.
But Anya made it through to see her husband, who works at McDonald’s. When she emerged after 15 minutes, she was a wreck.
“He’s not a soldier,” she said. “I don’t know how he’ll serve.”
Anya said that she had a bad feeling when her husband called her after she had dropped their 7-year-old daughter at school. It was a call she had dreaded, yet expected, for months, but it was no less devastating when it came.
“I’m in shock,” she said, listing the reasons her husband was unfit to serve, including a bad back. She said she would push for an exemption, find medical documents, anything to get him released. That was for tomorrow, she said. Now, she needed to go to her daughter. The girl did not know that her father had been drafted.
“I don’t know when to tell her, and how,” Anya said, choking on the words through tears. No longer able to speak, she headed off down the dark road. Moments later, the gate clanked open, revealing a line of men in civilian clothes being led past a banner that read, “Protecting your homeland is the duty of Ukrainian citizens.”
A white van drove in, but the crowd in front of the gate had cleared. Before the sun came up more people would form a line again, stuffed plastic bags in hand.
Oksana Parafeniuk contributed reporting.
Content Source: www.nytimes.com