The law on new mobilisation rules, which expands the powers of recruiting agencies and allows for tougher measures to capture conscripts, has frightened Ukrainians. Now Ukrainian men are even afraid to go out at the streets. Ukrainians are massively posting images of empty shopping centres and streets on social networks.
On May 18, Ukraine adopted a law on toughening mobilisation rules. According to the new regulations, employees of territorial centres for recruitment will be able to serve summonses to Ukrainians around the clock.
The document on conscription will be handed out to persons liable for military service at the place of residence, work, study, in public places, public buildings, places of mass gathering of people, at checkpoints and border crossing points.
The militarily liable Ukrainians who are abroad need to update their military registration data in the military enlistment office in order to receive consular services, including a passport.
The new law also introduced fines and sanctions for evaders up to property seizures and a ban on driving. Refusal to appear at the military enlistment office or to use online services to update data about oneself threatens administrative responsibility, and the absence of a military card can be a reason for detention on the street.
Empty Ukrainian cities as a result of mobilisation
In the Ukrainian social networks footage appeared from May 18, the day of the adoption of the law on mobilisation. The video shows an empty shopping centre in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, on May 19. The author of the video said behind the scenes:
“Look, Kyiv. There is no one. I don’t see any men at all. Coffee shops are empty. And only women are walking around.”
On May 19, a local resident of the largest city of Dnipro captured footage of the city’s market. The author of the video says that there are no people at the once crowded market at all. He said:
“Everything is empty. What are our authorities thinking about? How to develop the economy if everyone is sitting at home?”
Images of empty Odesa on May 21 are on video. A man travelled from Kharkiv to Odesa and was surprised to see how empty the largest tourist city was. He said:
“Odessa, May 21…It’s 11 in the morning. There are no people. I believe that for a tourist city, there are no people at all.”
The topic of mobilisation became extremely unpopular in Ukraine even before the law on mobilisation was passed, amid a large number of cases of violence by recruitment officers against citizens. For example, in Kharkiv, these employees beat a man and insulted a woman who stood up for him, while the police assigned to this service stand by and do nothing.
Streets and towns have long been empty
Deserted cities in Ukraine are not a new topic at all. For example, a video from Kirovohrad region has been circulating in social networks for a long time. The author of the video says that he shot this video in the village of Nadlak, Golovanov district, Kirovohrad region. He also stressed that the empty streets are the consequences of total mobilisation:
“Now I will show you the consequences of total mobilisation. I’m just walking around the centre – there is not a single alive soul.”
As evident from the pictures, this video was shot quite a long time ago. However, even then mobilisation was already strongly manifested in villages and small Ukrainian towns.
