A War of Independence. No escape?
A seventh article in a series dedicated to my personal memories of events that are related to Russo-Ukrainian War, its new and active phase that started 24.02.2022. Check below for the rest of the articles.
Part 6. No escape?
No Time to Think
I was awoken after just 5 hours of sleep by my friends who booked the rooms for us in a hostel. They told me we were in trouble and had to pack and leave. I wish I could brush my teeth, have a shower but it was too late for that: the clock was ticking.
A new law was passed that obliged all owners of hotels, hostels and motels to report the visitors’ passport data to local law enforcement. Two policemen were already in the lobby waiting for the owner to compose a spreadsheet. We asked the owner to open a garage so that we could leave on our vehicles, but she replied that she was too busy. She asked us not to worry and promised she’d only pass along women’s passport data. We were not happy with her reply.
After 10 minutes of strained waiting, we decided that our men would leave on our feet and our women would follow us on our vehicles as soon as possible. We found 2 options: a distant relative and a person that was advised on Kate’s workplace. Surprisingly, when the owner saw that we were leaving, she stopped filling the spreadsheets and opened the garage door.
We left on our vehicles while talking to the person from work. He was irritated, he refused to talk to anyone but Kate, inquired on names of people travelling, our vehicle license plate numbers and seemed to be aware of the route that we took. It was scary and confusing. We decided to first go and see the distant relatives’ place. The person from work got angry and said that we were wasting his time, asked us whether we were sure about that relative (we were not) and said that he’s not going to host us. Such a strange guy!
Finally we settled at a guest house of our distant relative. We were able to park both cars right next to his garage. A fence was providing some cover for the cars from the prying eyes of pedestrians strolling the street. As the guest house started warming up, we returned to assessment of our further options.
Tactical Situation
At this point we were aware of several reports of people being drafted in an attempt to cross the border in Zakarpatska region. The people who were drafted sometimes were in the 4th category, which was frightening. Let me tell you what the 4 categories are first.
Men of Ukraine (aged 18–60) fall to 4 categories (in order of draft priority) with respect to military service duties.
1st category is composed of men who have had recent military experience and are in operative reserve (2014 and later is considered as “recent”)
2nd category is composed of men who had military experience in distant past (prior to 2014) and are considered members of reserve.
3rd category is composed of men who had some military training while receiving higher education, but no military experience. They are considered to be bound to military service.
4th category is composed of men who didn’t fall to either of the above categories (that would be us).
There were multiple reports of large queues to join either Territorial Defense or Ukrainian Armed Forces in many large cities. My friends who wanted to enlist in Kyiv and in Ternopil were rejected due to lack of combat experience: the weapons should be first assigned to the ones who knows how to use them. So we thought the situation was going to be the same all over Ukraine. But something different was happening in Mukachevo.
Zakarpatska region was flooded with refugees and their relationships with local were becoming strained. It was difficult for locals to understand why should they be drafted to defend assaulted regions instead of people who fled those regions to hide from war in Zakarpatska region. It didn’t help to witness the “refugees” residing in best hotels driving around on expensive cars and emptying the local stores. And then we found out about one place where one could cross the border without the block station.
We rejected plans that involved bribes right away: I was not going to involve unfamiliar people who might be affected in legal way. I knew that corruption exists at all levels in Ukraine: it’s a national tradition aimed at bypassing tyrannic laws. I understood that IT folks have salaries that are 10–20 times higher than the average working person in Ukraine. We could offer tempting bribes to Ukrainian border guards, but would that be moral? I could imagine a young serviceman that would likely risk a lot disobeying direct orders in wartime being tempted by 1 or 2 of their annual salaries. The money could be a solid foundation towards buying a flat or a house after the service, it is even more tempting considering how unaffordable mortgages are for common Ukrainians, even after Mr. Zelenskyy’s reforms. I would not want to create such complex moral dilemmas for everyone, as I would not know what would be the right thing to do in such case.
Grasping at Straws
We started assessing the illegal crossing option that would involve just us, as we were desperate to leave Ukraine. We did some open-source research using google maps. We assessed every step of the road from nearby villages to the alleged crossing using images on google maps. We were not able to locate any block stations along the way. It was promising so far.
We decided to go covertly about crossing the border. We planned to send spies (our women) on one of the cars forward. They would drive and reach the village nearest to the border before dawn. Then they would switch off the lights and try to cross the border on a car, provided there are no block stations. In case they encounter block station on their way they would say that they are visiting their friends in the larger town nearby. In case they encountered a block station after that town they would say they were trying to cross the border to Romania and were using google navigator to do that (playing dumb). In case they encountered any block station on their way to the border, we would abort the operation immediately and they would return.
In case there were no block stations, they were told to stop at the nearest Romanian village and send us a sign (“+”) in Telegram using the pre-activated EU roaming on their SIM card. Only then would we (men) start our journey across on a 2nd car, re-tracing the steps of our spies. Meanwhile the women would go towards Romanian border to a block station to legally enter Romania using documents. We would follow them to do the same 1.5 hours later. That way we would bypass the Ukrainian border guards and legally enter the EU.
Reality Check
Just as the planning phase was over, I decided to notify one of the managers at work of this plan. He had some ties to Romania and I thought it wise to ask for his help. He advised strongly against our plan. He claimed that Romanian border guards would deport us back to Ukraine in case they don’t see the exit stamps from Ukrainian border guards. He also claimed it was criminally illegal to cross the border like that and that we could end up with a criminal record that would result in my inability to work in financial sector and in Solarisbank. That information and a satellite image of the border made us reconsider and abandon the operation altogether. We were stuck in Ukraine in wartime with no viable options for men to cross the border. We needed to adapt to a new reality.
Edit: There are no exit stamps in my passport although I traveled frequently. If only I knew how the electronic system linked to a passport works. It might be a case that when the chip inside the passport is scanned, it reveals that an entry related to exit from Ukraine is missing — really not sure how it works.
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Series:
Part 0. Historical Context. The European Choice
Part 6. No Escape?
