In the Reuters podcast, Christian Lowe describes a night of Russian drone attacks on Kyiv, listening to the whine and waiting for it to fade. “If it doesn’t, then you need to be worried.” In a WWII air-raid bunker in Berlin, visitors to the new Ukraine Museum get a few seconds of that feeling, “targeted” by a Russian drone camera as they enter. This contrast made me consider who stays in Ukraine and experiences the real-life version.
The Ukrainians who stay in these readings are largely men. Deb’s article profiles civilian volunteers, “judges by day and drone killers by night,” manning antiquated machine guns. One of them, Andrian, explains why he’s there: “We have children. We have a family.” The refugees in the Berlin readings appear mostly as statistics, and according to the UN, most people who fled Ukraine were women and children – as high as 90% in the first months of the war.
This could be read as courage versus flight, but it seems that the main sorting factor is the law. Under martial law, until August of last year, most Ukrainian men between 18 and 60 were barred from leaving the country. This gave me a new perspective on Deb’s piece. The volunteers she profiles are brave, but most couldn’t leave even if they wanted to. The law decided that they must stay, and they chose what to do about it.
The law changed in August 2025, when Kyiv raised the lower end of the age bracket to 23. In Germany, weekly registrations of male Ukrainian refugees aged 18-22 skyrocketed. In response, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz asked Ukrainian President Zelensky to “ensure that young men… do not come to Germany in ever-increasing numbers, but rather serve in their own country.”
Merz’s quote sent me back to the Kyiv Independent piece from earlier that year, when Ukraine and Germany agreed to open a “Unity Hub” in Berlin. It promised Ukrainians education and career opportunities and help for “those who want to return.” By then, Germany had spent more than 20 billion euros on Ukrainian refugees. This support was built around the people that Ukraine’s exit ban had let out, mostly women and children. But when young men started arriving, the chancellor asked Ukraine to keep them. I’m left wondering who exactly Germany’s welcome was for.
External sources:
https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-russia-war-germany-refugees-young-men-protection/a-74562374
https://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2022/05/rapid-gender-analysis-of-ukraine
