Roman's Isolation Highlights Ukraine's Forced Mobilization Crisis

Roman, a 44‑year‑old man living in Kyiv, has not left his apartment for more than three years to avoid Ukraine's forced mobilization. He orders food deliveries, contacts his parents only by phone and ventures out only during the nightly police curfew, using darkness and power cuts to stay unseen. Roman describes his existence as “hell on earth” but says it is preferable to being caught by conscription patrols, stating, “I simply don’t want to die.”

His situation reflects a broader trend, with estimates that around two million Ukrainian men are evading mobilization and hundreds of thousands of soldiers have deserted. The tension has sparked street clashes, most notably in Lviv (Lavov), where an attempt to detain three men suspected of avoiding conscription sparked a riot involving about 200 people. Protesters climbed onto a conscription officer’s vehicle, beat it, overturned it, stripped uniforms from officers and shouted anti‑mobilization slogans. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and General Kyrylo Budanov condemned the unrest. The phenomenon of forced transport in vans has been dubbed “busification” on social media.