Ukraine

In the trial of Vitaliy Shalaiko, one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, Ukraine’s high court has affirmed the right of conscientious objectors to refuse to be drafted to the army even in times of war. COs will be allowed to do alternative service instead of being drafted. Also in the Ukraine, President Petro Poroshenko has declared that the age of conscription will be increased from 18 to 20, and that the conscripts will not be required to fight in Anti-Terrorist Operation zones. He added that the army would move towards having more contracted soldiers.  

On 18th June, the Ukrainian military began it's sixth wave of conscription. This follows several other conscription 'waves' aimed at increasing the Ukrainian military by 50,000 people – a process that has only been 50% successful, with many desertions, and people travelling to work abroad to avoid conscription. Peter Mehed, the Ukrainian Deputy Defence Minister said that further waves of conscription could take place if the military did not reach it's target this time.

Antimilitarists in Spain have spoken out in solidarity with young Ukrainian's studying in the country, who have been recalled to fight by the Ukrainian government. Alternativa Antimilitarista.MOC Madrid has called on the Spanish government to protect six young Ukrainian on a study trip in Spain, after two young people recieved letters from the Ukrainian government in February, calling them up to military service. The students currently have to return to Ukraine every year to renew their permit. The organising group - Asociación de Asistencia a la Infancia de Aragón – has been organising such trips since the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, and is looking for ways to extend the young people's stay in Spain for several years.

After the reinstatement of military conscription last year, the Ukrainian military is undertaking the first of three waves of 'emergency' military conscription. Call ups in this wave started on 20 January, and men aged 25 to 60 are eligible for conscription. By mid-February 75000 people had been called up, of whom 60% will enter service, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko claims.

Conscription had ended in Ukraine in 2013, but was reimposed in 2014.

In the middle a wave of 'emergency conscription' in Ukraine, reports of desertion are high - especially in the West.  A mayor of a town in western Ukraine said “At least here mobilisation has been a total failure. People don’t understand what they are fighting against.” However the Ukrainian government has accused Russian government media of inflating desertion figues in a concerted propaganda campaign. Conscription had ended in Ukraine in 2013, but was reimposed in 2014. A new Ukrainian government decree regulates foreign travel for those subject to conscription. It means people could be arrested at border checkpoints, with those found guilty of draft-dodging facing up to five years in prison. Read more in our CO-Update for February; CO-Updates give bimonthly news of conscription, conscientious objection and counter-recruitment around the world. You can subscribe here.

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Björn Kunter

Russian Propaganda and the international Peace Movement

The freedom movement in Ukraine has received a lot of international attention during the Euromaidan events, but just very limited international support. Instead, it fell victim to an international defamation wave. This can partly be explained by failures of the movement, as some protesters turned violent and the movement failed to denounce itself from right wing elements. But more importantly the international peace movement, especially in Europe, must realize that it has been targeted by a massive propaganda campaign as part of Russia's hybrid warfare. Instincts from the cold war as a distrust of official media and empathy toward the Kremlin's interests, have been a fertile ground for the seeds of hate and desolidarisation with Ukrainian democracy and human rights activists.

Ukraine announced on Thursday (Aug 28) that it will return to mandatory conscription in the coming months as its troops battle pro-Russian insurgents in the east. "The National Security and Defence Council has decided to restart conscription in the fall (autumn)," Mykhailo Koval, deputy head of the council, said after an emergency meeting chaired by President Petro Poroshenko. Ukraine's government decided last year to switch to a contract-based professional army, ending Soviet-style bi-annual drafts in the spring and fall for men between 18 and 25. The last call-up into the Ukrainian armed forces, numbering 168,000 people in the beginning of 2014, was in October 2013 for a period of one year. In April the military announced partial mobilisation for people with military experience ahead of its operation in the east, where pro-Russian insurgents had declared two regions independent of Kiev's authority.

Sources: Channel News Asia, Kyiv Post, Daily Star

War has returned to European soil, and it seems that Europeans are not capable, or not willing, to apply the lessons they try to teach in other parts of the planet. The European Union, a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, put Ukraine in an impossible position when it asked it to choose between a political pact with the EU or a close economic relationship with Russia. Ordinary people in Ukraine have some of the lowest wages in the continent, and face one of the highest levels of political and economic corruption, creating hopelessness among many of them - hence the offer from the EU seemed to many like a golden opportunity to take a first step out of the mire.

The use of violence by both sides in the later stages of the Maidan protests created a precedent, and served as a justification for the use of violence in parts of Ukraine where many people disagree with the country's new political course. Also, the presence of neo-nazis in the new official Ukrainian politics, and the rise of the paramilitary units connected with them, encouraged other Ukrainians - in areas where many feel more attracted to and connected with Russia than with the EU - to consider armed struggle a legitimate method of dealing with conflict.

We republish in English a statement from Bund für Soziale Verteidigung, a WRI affiliated in Germany. Find the original (in German) here: http://www.soziale-verteidigung.de/news/meldungen/pressemitteilung-zur-…

On the Situation in Ukraine

Minden, 5. March 2014

We are observing the developments in the Ukraine with great concern; in particular, the ways

some media outlets and politicians are currently stirring up a revival of the East-West conflict.

Once more the world is divided into 'good' and 'bad'. The 'good guys are the uprising people of Ukraine, who demonstrated for democracy and association to (and membership of) the European Union. The 'bad guys' are once again 'the Russians', who are trying to stop this process through violence and the threat of military intervention in Ukraine. Neither is wrong, but the picture is much more complex. In fact, many protesters demonstrated on the Maidan because they were fed up with the corruption and arbitrary rule of the government of Yanukovych. They see themselves as only partly represented by the opposition parties – a strong element of the protests of recent weeks was the distrust people felt against all parties and all politicians.

Ukraine is now in the process of the final recruitment drive during it's system of military conscription. As we reported in a previous CO Alert, this is the second time that a cessation of the draft has been announced in Ukraine. This time it seems that this will happen.

President Viktor Yanukovych on 1st October at the International Peacekeeping and Security Center in the Lviv region as he revealed military reforms aimed at the creation of a "professional army."

UKRAINE: CCPR/C/UKR/CO/7

Recently, two nations have re-announced a cessation in conscription, having postponed previous plans to abolish conscription.

Ukranian Defense Minister Pavlo Lebedev has said that military conscription will be suspended in 2013. The press service of the Defense Ministry quoted Lebedev as saying that “In 2013, the structure and the system of management of the Armed Forces will be revised, military conscription will be suspended simultaneously with the transfer to the recruitment of army under contracts as in leading countries of the world".