About 20 people are waiting outside a recruitment center on the outskirts of Kiev - mostly elderly couples and mothers with young children. They have come to see their sons, husbands or fathers before they leave for the front.
"Photography is prohibited", reads the inscription on the portal. This mobilization center accommodates Ukrainian men recruited to serve in the army. They first undergo mandatory medical examinations before being transferred to military training centers, and from there to specific army units.
A soldier at the entrance pulls out a long list of names, calls out one by one, and those waiting outside rush into the courtyard. For some of them, this may be the last time they see their loved ones, the German public broadcaster ARD reports from Kiev.
The sick are also mobilized
Natalia came to see her 35-year-old son Vladimir. She told the German media reporter that he was taken away by the mobilization services just as he was in his work clothes. "They just took him and brought him here", she says.
Natalia assures that her son is sick and therefore unfit for military service. "We can prove it", the woman points out. Her son has impaired vision, psoriasis and a number of inflammations. Therefore, the mother insists that the medical examinations of mobilized recruits be carried out in good faith.
Natalia believes that the examinations are carried out too quickly and superficially. "The system is not good." There is no legal aid and the average citizen is defenseless, the woman told ARD.
Volunteers are not enough
Since there is a shortage of volunteers, the mobilization authorities are looking for any way to recruit new recruits. Their actions are regularly criticized: footage on social media shows men being taken straight from the street and taken by bus to army centers as described by ARD. Buses driven by uniformed men also arrive periodically, dumping men in civilian clothes in front of the gate. Photos of the interior of these mobilization centers can also be seen on the Internet, equipped with large dormitories with bunk beds and shared bathrooms with showers. On one of the buildings behind the metal gate is a sign: "Defense of Ukraine is a civic duty".
The visit to the relatives lasts about twenty minutes, after which the parents, wives and children leave. Pensioner Alla Hryhorivna came for her son-in-law. She believes that the conditions in the mobilization center are normal, the men are well-fed.
Alla believes that the conscription system is necessary and fair. Since her son-in-law runs a company, he was temporarily exempted from military service. However, this period has already expired, so he had to appear before the military commission in accordance with the rules and was mobilized. "He did not escape. We are at war and we must not surrender," the woman emphasizes to ARD.
The mobilization system divides Ukraine
Escape or submission? Ukrainian society is divided over the way new recruits are recruited for the army. On the one hand, soldiers and their families demand that those on the front be relieved and replaced with new recruits; on the other hand, families worry that their sons and husbands could be injured or killed in Russia's aggressive war - like so many Ukrainian soldiers before them.
Author: Tobias Dammers (ARD)