Ukraine faces a major draft evasion problem, but no place is quite like Vylkove, a Danube River town where men of draft age have all but vanished, many of them trying to avoid military service.
Draft officers picked Ivan up at a traffic stop and dropped him off at a training base, but he went absent without leave from the army after three days. Since then, he has been hiding at home in Vylkove, a small town in southernmost Ukraine, rarely stepping outside.
Almost four years after the full-scale Russian invasion, Ukraine faces the twin challenges of not having enough troops and men avoiding military service. Many men of draft age, 25 to 60, have broken the law that prohibits most of them from leaving the country, while others play a cat-and-mouse game with conscription officers or just hunker down at home.
The unique geography and history of Vylkove, a run-down Danube River fishing port, have made it an exaggerated version of Ukraine in miniature, where draft-age men have all but vanished.
