A Soldier’s Funeral and Its Social Undercurrents

On a sunny, cool Friday morning, hundreds of residents gathered in the main square of their Ukrainian town to pay tribute to the last of their neighbors to lose their lives since the Russian invasion in February 2022. The grim scene masked perhaps the growing tensions in society during the 33rd month of large-scale war in Ukraine.

With more than a dozen black-robed priests, a camouflaged military honor guard and numerous flag bearers in attendance, Rohatyn buried the 65th of its residents who died defending Ukraine, Volodymyr Olifer, on October 18.

Telegram channels of Rohatyn – around 8,000 inhabitants – and its immediate districts of the Ivano-Frankivsk region show that death and burial, like that of Olifer, a 55-year-old tractor driver, have become all-too-regular events that affect life in Ukraine.

Since early September, around eight other men from the district have been killed in action on Ukraine’s front line, with its invading army. Most of them were in their forties and part of the very patriotic and relatively older wave of those who volunteered for Ukrainian military service.

Speaking to the Kyiv Post after the commemoration, Rohatyn Mayor Serhii Nasalek said his city had changed during the war.

“There is little joy left… We are only organizing; we work to support the military. For example, our city budget only goes to maintaining our infrastructure and everything else goes to helping our troops,” Nasalek said.

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“We can only continue with faith in God and faith in Ukraine,” said a visibly tired but tough mayor. “We must believe that we can defeat our enemy and achieve victory. »

Rohatyn knows a lot about war and suffering. During the First World War, front-line trenches between the troops of the Ottoman Empire and the troops of the Russian Empire ran through its center. During World War II, the Shoah – or Holocaust by Bullets – saw up to 4,000 local Jews executed by Nazi German troops. Ukrainian nationalists were severely repressed by Soviet authorities throughout their rule.

Despite all this, belief in Ukraine’s aspirations is historically very strong in this part of the country. Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, of which Rohatyn is an integral part, has long been considered the physical and spiritual home of Ukrainian nationalism, including as the birthplace and main operational territory of legendary World War II leader Stefan Bandera and Roman Shukhevych. Thousands of Ivano-Frankivsk residents were bussed from the region to participate and some claim they led the Orange and Maidan revolutions.

For example, during the service in Olifer, the kyiv post had as many red and black nationalist flags as blue and yellow national flags. To this day, locals continue to discover war paraphernalia kept in secret locations by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists; it is proudly displayed at the recently developed local museum.

Pressure on small town communities

Over the past two months, as Russian forces have stepped up their pressure in the east of the country in particular, even in this nationalist stronghold, residents’ confidence is being tested as the loss of family members , friends, loved ones, work colleagues and neighbors has become more frequent. for many Ukrainian communities.

This is because Russian attacks have increased by about 20 percent in the recent period, according to statistics from the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

The increasing intensity of the war, including the now ubiquitous use of deadly drones, appears to be putting two distinct but related pressures on the small Ukrainian town.

On the one hand, there are the direct and emotional consequences of the loss of human life. Although the Ukrainian military does not disclose casualty numbers, the frequency of funeral processions and the creation of new graves in small towns and villages across the country are more evident than ever during the war.

“Here in western Ukraine, although we had occasional missile attacks, the war seemed elsewhere,” Yaroslav, an elderly man from Rohatyn, told the Kyiv Post. “Now there is nowhere to look. Deaths have become daily and cannot be ignored.

At the same time, and after years of bitter war of attrition along the front, the exhausted Ukrainian army – previously based largely on volunteer contract soldiers – has redoubled its efforts to replenish its ranks through conscription. .

This follows President Volodymyr Zelensky’s lowering of the age from 27 to 25 in April and approval of an overhaul of the conscription process that took effect in May, which requires men under 60 years old to renew their personal data in conscription offices or online. At a press conference on October 18, Zelensky categorically denied any plans to further reduce the conscription age from 25 to 18 and acknowledged the challenges of mobilization.

Nevertheless, to meet a current unconfirmed target of 30,000 conscripts per month to reach a supposed total of 200,000 in 2024, military recruitment authorities, as well as the police, have intensified enforcement of the new mobilization regime. Throughout the province of Ukraine, over the past summer and with even greater momentum, there have been regular and consistent reports of men being forcibly arrested for mandatory checks of their papers and eligibility for immigration. conscription.

“Because the towns are bigger, you don’t see the authorities carrying out checks and sometimes taking people directly to the military base,” said a military-age man in Rohatyn. “But here, everyone sees when they set up a roadblock or stop people coming out of the supermarket.”

Anecdotes, rumors and gossip are rife, as are factually verified incidents. Every resident the kyiv Post spoke with told a story about the current mobilization campaign. At Olifer’s funeral in Rohatyn, there were hardly any young men observable, except for a few members of the guard of honor.

Footage from outside megagroup Okean Elzy’s 30th anniversary concert at the Kyiv Sports Palace on October 11 showed recruiting authorities dragging a man in plain clothes to the sidewalk as he shouted in protest and Spectators chanted “Shame!”

A taxi driver spread a rumor that military recruitment authorities – referred to by their Ukrainian acronym T-Ts-Ka – were receiving bribes from competing companies to suppress personnel from competing companies.

Kyiv Post is aware of half a dozen individual cases of young men of military age who have essentially become “hermits in their homes,” including in small towns and villages. Indeed, these individuals do not leave their apartment or house for fear of being arrested, controlled and immediately deployed for military service by the T-Ts-Ka. Some are waiting for their offers to be processed for legitimate exemptions, including for critical jobs or for home care responsibilities.

Last week, Ukrainian social media was lit up by the story of a local prosecutor who enriched himself through bribes from those who paid fake exemptions from military service – an incident also being discussed in the small town of Rohatyn. It is impossible to verify the extent to which corruption based on the mobilization system is real, perceived or fabricated, but it seems to resonate with some.

“It’s not a question of fear of death, it’s a question of fairness,” a “country hermit” told the Kyiv Post. “Why should those of us who can’t afford bribes be sent to war while those of us who can pay others can get out and continue partying?”

Others, however, see a broader context. Serhii Kuzan is executive director of the Ukrainian Center for Security and Cooperation. Kuzan asserts that “the negative incidents surrounding the mobilization are largely outweighed by the positive but unreportable events in the press, where thousands of men are enlisted with their full cooperation and without drama.”

“We should by no means ignore the fact that an alarmist campaign about mobilization is clearly in Moscow’s interests and that the Kremlin is certainly the source of many unfounded rumors,” he said.

In Rohatyn, after the prayers of the gathered group, Volodymyr Olifer’s coffin is carried in a hearse by his army comrades. As the vehicle drives away, residents head to adjacent stores or greet each other and exchange quiet conversations. After the solemn service, life seems to return to normal, but the extraordinary challenges of wartime remain.