Six more Ukrainians drown trying to flee abroad – media

Another six bodies were reportedly discovered in the Tisza River at the western border of Ukraine on Monday, according to a local journalist. The river has claimed dozens of lives amid rising rates of illegal border crossing attempts, as Kiev ramps up its mobilization efforts.

The Ukrainian border guard service officially confirmed one death on Monday, identified as an unknown middle-aged man whose body showed signs of prolonged stay in the water. The corpse was discovered by their Romanian counterparts on the opposite side of the border. The latest incident marks the 25th such case over the past two years, the border guard said.

However, according to local media reports a total of six bodies were found on Monday, four of them on the Ukrainian and two on the Romanian side of the Tisza. “One of the men had recently turned 20 years old,” local journalist Vitaly Glagola wrote on his Telegram, warning of the dangers of attempting to cross the treacherous mountain river.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky made it illegal for Ukrainian men aged between 18 and 60 to leave the country without a special permission, as he declared martial law after the escalation of the Russia-Ukraine conflict in February 2022. In April, Zelensky signed a new mobilization bill into law, introducing harsher conscription rules.

General Aleksandr Pavlyuk, who heads the Ukrainian Land Forces, argued in March that any sympathy for the “poor people drowning in the Tisza” undermines the mobilization effort. Amid the tightening grip of the conscription efforts, Ukrainians are not willing to join the armed forces, an infamous neo-Nazi Azov regiment member admitted to local news TSN last month. Men “do whatever they come up with” to avoid being drafted, even “swimming across the Tisza River and drowning themselves,” the soldier said.

Earlier on Monday, the Ukrainian Border Guard bragged about capturing a 44-year-old man dressed in women’s clothes as he tried to illegally cross into Romania.

Kiev is struggling to replenish the losses it has sustained throughout its conflict with Russia, although it has not officially confirmed the number of casualties. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, Kiev has lost more than 111,000 servicemen this year alone, while its total losses throughout the conflict have amounted to about half a million troops.