Ukraine Ukrainian deserter shot dead on the way to the border
According to their own statements, Ukrainian border guards have shot a deserter near the Moldovan border. The deserter had previously attacked a border guard, said Andriy Demchenko, spokesman for the authority, to the internet portal "Ukrajinska Pravda".
15.07.2024, 11:15
15.07.2024, 11:49
SDA
According to the report, a group of four deserters in a car were stopped at a checkpoint around 15 kilometers from the border on Sunday evening. Two are said to have tried to flee. One of them later resisted when he was discovered and died as a result of a second direct shot after a warning shot.
According to state investigators, the group fled from a training ground in the Odessa region by cab and were on their way towards the Transnistria region in Moldova, which is controlled by pro-Russian separatists. The rest of the group had been arrested.
According to Demchenko, border guards have already been forced to use firearms against refugees on several occasions. He did not give any details. At the end of June, according to media reports, two fleeing, conscripted civilians were shot by border guards at the Romanian border in the Chernivtsi region after allegedly attacking them with a machete. One of the two fugitives died from the gunshot wounds.
Martial law has been in force in Ukraine since the Russian invasion in February 2022. Due to mobilization, men between the ages of 18 and 60 who are liable for military service can only leave the country in exceptional circumstances. Due to a lack of volunteers, the Ukrainian military is increasingly having to replace its losses with forced recruits. Conscripts are therefore also trying to avoid military service by fleeing across the green border to neighboring EU countries or Moldova. The Ukrainian border guards are therefore increasingly erecting barbed wire fences on the western borders to prevent the men from escaping.
