Reporting
For the wives of Ukrainian soldiers still at the front, demobilization must take place quickly
The men who have been fighting since the start of the war are exhausted: they must be able to return to civilian life. This is the message that the wives of Ukrainian soldiers who regularly demonstrate in many Ukrainian cities to obtain the demobilization of their husbands are trying to convey. As discussions on the Mobilization Bill continue in Parliament, they are calling for the introduction of a realistic maximum period of service.
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Lessya Polek's husband has been fighting on the southern front for 2 years. © Anastasia Becchio/RFI
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From our special correspondents in Lviv
,
Anastasia Becchio and Boris Vicith
Three short leaves of absence in two years, one of which was spent in hospital to treat post-traumatic syndrome: that's all that Lessya Polek's husband, an actor, who joined the defense force, was able to obtain territorial, on the first day of the Russian invasion, when her second son was only a year and a half old.
Read alsoKiev accuses Moscow of having executed two Ukrainian prisoners of war
“It was
February 24, 2022, after helping to organize a bomb shelter in the basement of our theater, he joined the Territorial Defense. He quickly realized that the only thing he could do was take part. And that’s how we’ve been waiting for her for two years
,” says the young woman, also an actress at the Lviv puppet theater.
“
Physically, morally, psychologically, soldiers who are in combat zones are exhausted. They are supermen. My husband tells me: "I'm so tired that I no longer have a sense of time, I don't know if it's day, night or what day of the week, because, in the trenches, everyone the days are the same." I'm really sad to hear sometimes in our conversations that he feels like he'll never come back
.”
A bill defining the length of service authorizing a soldier to be demobilized is currently under discussion. As it currently stands, the text in preparation provides for a minimum period of thirty-six months, or one more year on the front for Lessya's husband: "
If it is 36 months in a unit located at behind, I would understand, yes, it's long, it's tiring, it can be dangerous too, but 36 months in a combat zone is very different, it's like a life sentence and...
".
Ellipsis, which reflects the concern of Lessya, who regularly holds back her tears. Alone to manage the household, the childhood illnesses of her three-year-old son, her own health problems, the anxiety when she knows that her husband is on special operation. She also has to answer questions from her eldest, 11 years old, who asks her why her dad “
abandoned them for Ukraine
”.
Also listen: The draft law on mobilization agitates and questions Ukrainian society
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