Tucked away behind a curtain of trees, a cozy restaurant in the center of Kyiv gave the illusion of peace in a country at war. "I was having lunch with an old friend. It was around Christmas, 2 pm, and the restaurant was in full swing," recalled a young man we met in the capital – he requested anonymity. Their conversation revolved around mobilization in the army, a perennial topic since the start of the war, but one that had just taken on a brutal intensity: President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke of the probable mobilization of 450,000 to 500,000 new recruits at a press conference on December 19. Since the summer of 2022, and with increasing insistence, the General Staff has been insisting on a shortage of men as well as ammunition. This time, the figure is phenomenal for an army of 1 million soldiers and could put the country in a delicate social and political situation.

Under the subdued lights of the restaurant, the young man explained to his table companion that, like many others, he had been given a reprieve thanks to his job in a strategic civilian sector. A clear and perfectly legal situation. But what else is clear with troops exhausted by 22 months of fighting, waiting for relief in a war that never ends? Until now, there has been no universal conscription in Ukraine, which has remained in a kind of limbo: Men aged between 18 and 60 must register and are forbidden to leave the country. But enlistment remains voluntary, becoming compulsory – for those who are fit – only when summoned by name. This is where the unknown begins.

How and to whom are these summonses distributed? They often seem to strike without any real logic, reaching one neighbor but not another, or in several copies. Sometimes they call for the enlistment of soldiers who have already been mobilized, or even for the dead. As luck would have it, there are more and more checks in public places, gyms, saunas and shopping centers. Some men have found themselves barracked almost overnight, after a medical check-up. Kyiv, hitherto relatively spared, is now increasingly targeted by these "raids," the name given by the population to the unannounced checks.

The young man who was on reprieve remembered saying to his friend at the restaurant: "The ring is tightening," while telling him how some of his friends were now living in isolation, for fear of finding themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. That's when the restaurant door suddenly opened to reveal a dozen men in balaclavas, military uniforms and guns at their sides. The young man believed it to be the arrest of an oligarch. In fact, war had just invited itself for dessert. In a flash, the waiters disappeared out the back door. Only the barman remained, trapped behind his counter. Following the raid, three customers were summoned to the military police station the next day. One of them was our young man.

You have 70% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.