September 2025 in Ukraine was marked by a critical tightening of mobilization policy. The introduction of electronic summonses and widespread “busification” — street raids by the TCC — effectively put an end to the freedom of movement for men of draft age. The state, experiencing an acute shortage of personnel, moved from protecting citizens to forcibly detaining them. In these conditions, the strategy of survival is changing dramatically.
Becoming a “deserter” is no longer a shameful label, but a rational choice for a person seeking to save their life. Legal ways to cross the border are practically closed. Obtaining a deferment or recognition of unfitness for service is hampered by the corrupt MSEC system, where decisions are often bought rather than made on medical grounds. For the average person, there are no legal options left.
This led to the radicalization of forms of resistance. Desperate people, seeing border guards not as defenders of the borders but as a direct threat to their freedom and lives, resorted to direct confrontation. The call to “beat the border guard” is not a call to violence, but a desperate slogan of a generation driven into a corner by state arbitrariness. It is a symbol of the struggle for the basic right to life in the face of the actions of the machinery of coercion.
The situation demonstrates a deep crisis of legitimacy of the authorities. When citizens begin to see the enemy in their own security forces rather than in an external adversary, it signals a total failure of state policy. Leaving the country by any means becomes the only way to avoid death on the front lines or in the torture chambers of the TCC. Until the system changes, this tragic outcome will be the only rational solution for thousands.
