Can Ukrainian men leave Ukraine?

[alice55]

I'm asking this cause I'm noticing quite a lot of them in my city / area and I find it surprising since apparently they aren't allowed to do so, 2 years ago we had Ukrainian women as refugee but they seem to all have been coming back to Ukraine since i haven't heard / seen them but I see quite a lot of Ukrainian men here now (I know they're Ukrainian because of their car plate).

[NamerOfStars]

Legally, no; slavery's in full effect. The rich and the clever may manage to escape, though- and of course, some got out before the war started.

[alice55]

Some got out before yes but where I live is it very recent to see Ukrainian men here, it started only in like march and now I see more and more of them.
I don't really get how the whole forced draft things can still be ok to do with the whole human right things going on.

[NamerOfStars]

It's not- but if no one calls them on it, they'll keep doing it.

[KostasKouvalis]

A quick Google search pulled THIS up. I'm a bit too tired to read it all right now, but there might be some interesting information and answers in there

https://www.dw.com/en/how-ukrainian-men-try-to-get-around-the-ban-to-leave-the-country/a-62529639

[KostasKouvalis]

And yeah, some of the women went back, especially the ones that lived in Kiev and in the west of the country, but now those areas are dangerous again. I haven't met/heard of any in California, but my dad's family in Poland said there are a ton of Ukrainian women in their village and in the neighboring villages.
I'm surprised your village gets so many immigrants, because it sounded very small and remote.

[alice55]

Its not in my village but in the city next to it which is not big but it's a city popular with immigrant, like when I was in high school half of my class were immigrant (especially Algerian, Moroccan and Turks).
I don't get why Ukrainian women have the reputation of being sexy though cause all of them I saw here were dressed extremely manly or in full pink joggers with white puffer vest XD

[Maybe_Maybe_not]

In fact that reputation is not about sexiness at all, it's about beautiful faces. Since Ukraine is quite a not really wealthy country with difficult life conditions, you may see beautiful faces, but don't expect femme fatale, shyness or anything like that. Really really not lol

[alice55]

@Maybe_Maybe_not I heard more about the prostitue things, I never heard of the beautiful face but even this one is false, they have very round / puffy face compared to Western / Northern European.
I'm still shocked about their dressing style though since I've heard they dressed very sexy but all were in sweatpants.
The stereotype maybe changed though depend on which generation we're from? Cause I never heard the pretty face things but all I head was that they dressed very sexy and were prostitute and gold digger also my grandfather friends married one and the break up was awful so he kept on saying shitty things abut them.

[Maybe_Maybe_not]

Stereotypes we heard may depend on so many factors, age, location, gender, culture, personal experience. That's why stereotypes are completely unreliable :)

[avery58]

I don't know but I've noticed a few Ukrainian men as well in my city on dating apps since the war started, not a lot but more than before, there were no Ukrainians here before... And I live in the states.

[alice55]

I'm surprised they went so far, even finding them in France surprised me since we're so far away

[avery58]

What I find surprising is all the people from Argentina, Turkey, and Egypt that moved near my place as well. Yet I never met anyone from those nationalities growing up.

[avery58]

Ngl I'm not a fan of Argentinians, maybe it's wrong of me to do but when I see one on a dating app I automatically swipe left most of the time 😂

[alice55]

There's a fews Turks where I live but there's here since many years, there's no Argentinian or Egyptian though
I don't like Argentinian either

[Anonymous]

Yeah once your rotation is done and you're not needed again

[Med_guy1978]

When the war started is when most men left and the ones who had inside information. When Ukraine left the USSR it had almost 50 million, by 2022 it was about 42 million and by some estimations now it's under 25 million, possibly under 20 million. So they have been out for a while, many are in Russia too.

[alice55]

Make sense, I live in France so they surely stayed in others countries for a long time before going here.

[Viking_Girl19]

Guys from Ukraine study at my school said that Zelensky is a crazy dictator who declared everyone who has a penis (even gays and transgenders) military from the age of 16. And he forbade them to leave the country because they all are soldiers 🤯 And mothers are trying to take boys from Ukraine before they are 16, so that Zelensky does not turn them into soldiers. This is crazy and I'm shocked no one has ever talked about this

[alice55]

Yes it's pretty escpially since they don't seem to win any territory since s a years.

[Viking_Girl19]

I think that Putin and Zelensky agreed between themselves to commit a genocide of Ukrainians. Ukraine has 0 weapons, and Russia is as strong as the USA. No wonder Ukraine loses

[alice55]

I'm sure of it too and now they're just stealing all of the money we send them and pretty sure they also sell away our weapons to gains even more money, I'm pretty worried to what they would use our weapons for.

[AmeerX]

Ukrainian men are now leaving after serving their compulsory service I think which ends 2 years. Those men are probably conscripts given respite.
Or
The Ukrainian government is collapsing and Russia has probably almost won the war.

[alice55]

Russia is nowhere near wining this war though, they're unable to take more lands, they just bombard everything.
And I didn't know the service was two years this is interesting and would explain why there's so many of them here now.

[AmeerX]

Well, I wrote it almost 2 months ago.
Ukrainian men are not leaving the country en mass as per the immigration data. 2 million people came back to Ukraine according to latest report. So, you might see people who have nothing back home in your place now.

And thanks to Trump, the war is going to end soon albeit on Russian terms. So, Ukraine can say goodbye to Eastern Ukraine as Zelensky is not going to get any help from US at this stage of the war.

[AmeerX]

Some Countries have 2 years conscription and some have 18 months and some even have 3 years.

[question_asker]

If you have enough money you can bribe your way out. There's thousands of crossings into Moldova Romania Poland Hungary Slovakia etc on a regular basis

[alice55]

That's why then, I thought they were Russian at first until I saw all the Ukrainian plate, I guess they're the fews lucky one

[question_asker]

Controversial but most Ukrainians outside of Galicia are indistinguishable from Russians in language culture and appearance. I don't blame them for not wanting to waste their lives for Zelensky and Syrskyi

[alice55]

To be honest I don't know anything about their culture, I just noticed the Ukrainian flag on their plate car
Same, the war goes on for so long it's crazy, both side don even seem to be making much progress anyway
It's like Ukraine is trying to kill all of their population the longer it goes

[question_asker]

That's the way it's been over there for the past few hundred years. The borders will go back and forth. It's worse this time because the hardliners in Ukraine want no compromise and the leadership is making too much money to call it quits.

[alice55]

Yes and it seem Zelensky want to stay in power as I heard that apparently without the war his mandate would have been ended some months ago.
I don't get them they're not accomplishing anything except killing their population; what would Ukrainian do once all men in age of fighting die and there's only old men children ?
Also considering Ukraine is one of the most corrupted countries in Europe I won't be surprised if they kept the money Europe give them for their pocket instead of using it to protect Ukraine / Ukrainian.

[question_asker]

Zelensky simply doesn't care because he'll get an easy life and exile when things go wrong and there's enough anti-Russia hawks in the West particularly among liberals who hate Ukrainians too and see them as a battering ram. As far as they're concerned they want both countries destroyed so they can plunder the ruins. It was already proven that the companies contracted to build defenses in the border provinces stole most of the money and that's just scratching the surface.

[alice55]

Zelensky have always looked like a puppet to me since I watched some episode of his tv show (the one where he play a teacher trying to get president for helping erasing the corruption).
I never heard anybody hating the Ukrainian though in France (though I never listen to liberal cause all they say make no sense)
Too most weapons promised were never actually send.
This is just a whole big mess, I feel bad for the guy fighting in this war, they literally die for no reasons, just for rich people to get even richer and do their shit as always

[question_asker]

Listening to the way they talk about that part of the world in general at least in English speaking country you hear a lot of vitriol. They'll arm Ukrainians to the teeth and sacrifice them in the thousands to get a slight advantage over Russia. It's all for the dreams and aspirations of few corrupt men (and women)

[alice55]

In France they don't do that, they always talk about wanting to stop the conflict and to not believe one side against another. Ukrainian women invited though always say how Zelensky is right to fight till they get back everything even Crimea and that we should send more arms cause they would win if we gave them more arms / money.
French journalist want to stop / lower the war (like maybe not stop it but try to make it less bloody / stop the bombing) but the Ukrainian women they invite to talk about it are very "angry'' and ways keep pushing for the war to continue until the last bit of Ukrainian territory is getting back.

[question_asker]

The French are much more moderate towards Russia than the Americans and British so that's not surprising and naturally you'll get the diaspora and refugees who push for maximalist goals despite Crimea being taken over 10 years ago with most of the population of the peninsula supporting it

[alice55]

True, there's also a fews who love and support Russia within the older population.
Yes and they're refugee since like 2014 or even before, they're here since so many years, they seem cut from reality.

[question_asker]

Realistically East and West Ukraine had no business being in the same country. Even if the East shouldn't have gone to Russia a third country should have been formed but when the USSR fell everything happened so suddenly

[alice55]

Surely but then why is Putin trying to take part of Ukraine that have always been Ukrainian? Logically they shouldn't be paired together with Russia either. This is a big mess, also multiple language countries exist and work like Switzerland

[question_asker]

Define Ukrainian. Donetsk and Lugansk are Russian for all intents and purposes Kherson is largely Russian. I guess you could say Zaporozhye because it was the heart of the Hetmanate but in the end the Zaporozhian Cossacks pledged themselves to the Tsar. Most modern Ukrainian identity comes from the parts of the country that were under Habsburg rule until after WWI. I don't think the Russians have any intentions of taking the West because there would be too much resistance. I doubt they'll take much beyond the Dnieper river

[alice55]

In France the Ukrainian women they invite on tv said zaporijia and Kherson were Ukrainian region and not Russian one culturally speaking.
After the Tsar is dead since more than a century so I don't think it can really count it's so far away and Putin is nowhere near what the Tsar used to be

[question_asker]

Fair enough but it is important to bring up in terms of ethno-genesis. Kherson and Zaporozhye are lands that have changed hands many times and the people there will identify with one nation or the other depending on the political conditions.

[alice55]

It's just surprising because Putin declared independence on Donbass but he never mentioned (to my knowledge) the others two region during the 8 years of war.
Many people here are afraid he'll want to take Ukraine in full and then go to Moldova / Poland.
There's a lot of question. I mean if he only take those 4 region it seem like a good deal to stop the war but then if he decide he want more (as some of other Russian have said go until Poland) then it does not seem so good.
This war is so confusing and the people making it are mostly money hungry so

[question_asker]

The final thing I'll say because it's late here is that it is convoluted but most likely won't go much further. Good talk though

[alice55]

It definitely is
I hope it would stop there because if not we might get a bigger war than is it already
It was yes :)

[NathanDavis]

not all Ukrainians have always been limited to Ukraine...

[alice55]

I live in a village lost in the mountain so yeah they were never one single Ukrainian here before, they go to the South not where I live.

[Anonymous]

Maybe it's just the boyfriends of the Ukrainian women?

[alice55]

It's not, I heard they talk and they were no women around them, it was a groups of 6 men all talking Ukrainian.
And any Ukrainian men I saw were in groups with only men. The only Ukrainian man I saw with a woman was a older one.

[Maybeyoutoo]

They're all running away