Men traveling abroad during martial law: you have little choice/Getty Images
This is one of the few cases when I “turn on the diplomat” and I will try to write in such a way so as not to offend anyone.
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The question of the expediency/inexpediency of creating the possibility for some additional categories of men to leave Ukraine for a long time during martial law is well known.
It was also raised at the last meeting of the Servant of the People faction. We decided to discuss it in detail in the near future and make some internal decision. The discussion was initiated by those who are “for”.
Difficult question
For me, this is not an easy question… This is a difficult situation when you have to decide the fate of other people, hesitating between what your heart says and intelligence. But I read some ideas that I did not expect and would not like to hear at all.
I am frankly outraged by the comments (not commentators) that “why even go to that war if I have been paying defense taxes all my life”? This is the slogan skillfully sown by the enemy and modified since 2014 – “this is not your war”, “this is the war of politicians”, “let the oligarchs fight”. There are many other options, down to “I've been paying taxes all my life that armies of soldiers withheld, so now it's time for them to work off my money.”
You can't distance yourself from this war. You can hide or run away and not on the territory of Ukraine. Distance – no. The bloody events taking place in Ukraine are the result of decisions that were not made in our country.
The scale and form of the invasion are such that the regular army and special services (in the form in which they exist in peacetime) are unable to counter threats. Everything that happens with mobilization in Ukraine is dictated by the logic of war, not peacetime.
In general, even the Constitution of Ukraine, in the very first paragraph of Article 17, clearly defines that “protection of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, ensuring its economic and information security … is the business of the entire Ukrainian people.”
The choice is small
The armed forces are only a tool for this task. And this tool can be seriously reconfigured depending on the situation. And the security and defense sector now employs at least four times as many people as during the peacetime. But the size of our security and defense sector during the war is still less than the size of the Russian one in the peace period. This is a clear signal that each of us should be ready to be mobilized into the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
The slogans that I paid taxes in order not to fight do not work. As we can see, Russia without any sentimentality mobilizes men in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine. Therefore, you have little choice – either be ready to fight for your country, or prepare to fight against it.
The Ukrainian state is trying to be responsible to its citizens who are forced to defend our country. This responsibility is realized both through certain legal decisions that allow you to pick up and use weapons, and through social policy – significant payments to our defenders, protection of the wounded, support for the families of the dead, etc.
Even with the mobilization, Ukraine behaves in a balanced and responsible manner. There is no panic and no desire to take everyone into the army. We have mobilized as much as we can afford in terms of both military sufficiency and our ability to support them.
Of course, I'm talking about the level of politics. At the level of implementation of the decisions taken, there are more than enough problems. There are enough cases of corruption, there is incompetence and incompetence of individual performers, there are scoundrels who are trying to avoid fulfilling their duty to defend the country, traitors. And among deputies, and among businessmen, and among “ordinary people”. Yes, there are enough problems in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which are sometimes presented by persons who are the embodiment of the worst Soviet practices.
All this is there, and all this is very painful and unpleasant. All this should be and most often the object of attention of law enforcement agencies, public condemnation, and so on. But …
None of the problems that exist in the government, in the army or anywhere else, does not change anything about our duty and need to defend the country. Our duties cannot be transferred to others. A country in a war cannot have about a million citizens who somehow escaped military registration. It cannot be that everyone happily enjoys the opportunities and rights provided by the Constitution and implemented by the government, but at the same time avoids duties.
This will be the main criterion for me when it comes to will come to a vote on whether to give more citizens of Ukraine the opportunity to go abroad.
