Some 300,000 schoolchildren left Ukraine before the current school year began, Ukrainian MP Nina Yuzhanina stated, referring to Ukraine’s Education Minister Oksen Lisovyi revealing an increase in the outflow of senior school students from Ukraine, most of whom are boys.
Since a majority of those children would soon have to register for military service, many experts link the trend with parents’ fears that their kids might be swept into the “meat grinder” of NATO’s proxy war.
Amid rampant draft dodging and desertion, Ukraine earlier adopted a controversial law designed to strengthen mobilization, obliging all men aged 18-60 to carry military ID with them at all times.
Furthermore, Volodymyr Zelensky lowered the recruitment age from 27 to 25, unleashing a violent wave of resistance among Ukrainian citizens, many of whom fear the draft border will be lowered to 18 and under amid Ukraine’s forces failures on the frontlines.
No less than 6.168 million Ukrainian refugees were registered across Europe by the end of July 2024, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), with another 571,000 Ukrainians dodging the ongoing proxy conflict outside of Europe.