In the summer of 2025, the Ukrainian authorities allowed men aged 18 to 22 to travel abroad. In the first three months alone, at least 78,000 young men left the country. Meduza collected the stories of several of them—those who took advantage of the decision and left for Europe. These are not stories of cowardice or betrayal. They are stories about what it means to be a young man in a country that has now lived in a state of war for four years.
When the House Burned Down
Alexei from Odesa left for Berlin at 23. The reason was neither fear of the TCC nor fatigue from the war in some abstract sense—a Shahed drone hit his apartment. The blast wave blew out the doors of the bathroom, where he happened to be at the time. The apartment itself burned down. A month later, the decree allowing departure was issued, and Alexei left three weeks before his birthday.
He had no plans to join the army—neither out of fear nor calculation. Friends already serving in the military told him themselves: young men should not be going there. His parents supported the decision, and his friends wished him luck.
As Alexei tells Meduza, people in Berlin are in no rush—in their mid-20s or even at 30, they can calmly enroll at university, sit in the park, and simply relax. “Some choose patriotism, while others choose their own future,” he says. In the end, everyone is responsible for himself.
“My Future Is to Return Home With Money”
Dmytro from Bakhmut is 23. For his family, the war did not begin in 2022, but back in 2014: that was when they left for Russia, driven there by propaganda, only to return home—to Ukraine. In 2022, they had to flee again, this time to Dnipro. Severe anxiety, the sense that something could happen at any moment—all of it has stayed with him ever since.
At first, he had no intention of leaving. He had a job, and he had plans—to enter university and save money. But with each passing month, things grew worse: shelling, corruption, forced mobilization. His cousin-uncle was killed defending Mariupol, and to this day the family has received nothing from the state—they even had to pay for the funeral themselves.
As Dmytro tells Meduza, he is now in Wolfsburg, but plans to return in 2027—not because he will be forced out, but because Ukraine remains closer to him than anywhere else, despite everything. His words sound like a quiet but firm promise to himself: to come home with money, buy a house, and live.
Freedom as the First Word
Andriy is from Lyman, and he is 22. When the full-scale war began, he left his hometown for Kyiv, while his parents made their way to Europe. He did consider crossing the border illegally—but he had read about people paying smugglers only to end up in the hands of border guards, and he decided not to take the risk.
He left two weeks after the restrictions were lifted—delayed only by the paperwork for his dog. He now lives in Brno, works at a factory, and is learning Czech.
As Andriy tells Meduza, the decisive factor in his choice was not so much the desire to get away from missiles as the need to escape the way people were being treated. In Kyiv, he saw a man being shoved into a TCC vehicle in broad daylight. “Freedom is the first word that comes to mind,” he says of his life now. He has no plans to return to Ukraine.
A Lottery Over Kyiv
Kyrylo, from the Kyiv region, tried several times to leave as early as 2022—first with his family, when Russian troops approached their village, and then as a student at a foreign university. Both times, he was stopped at the border. His father left, but Kyrylo stayed behind—working and paying for housing so his parents would not worry.
As Kyrylo tells Meduza, the decision to leave took shape after one of his acquaintances was killed in a bombardment—not at the front, but at home, in a residential district of Kyiv. He ran the numbers: around 500 drones fly over the city every week, and roughly ten buildings are hit. It is simply a lottery. A week after leaving, he learned that a strike had landed not far from his home.
On the day the decree was issued, he was at a work briefing. One of his colleagues shouted: “Guys, we can leave!” His older co-workers told him, “Go, don’t think twice—if I could, I would do the same.” Kyrylo is now in Wolfsburg, looking for an apartment and learning German. He sees his future in Europe—though he does not rule out returning.
Two Years on the Front Line
Maksym’s story stands apart. He is 21, from Odesa—and he is the only one among Meduza’s protagonists who has already served. He spent two years as a combat medic in the Offensive Guard. He volunteered willingly—he wanted to go, felt physically prepared, and believed in what he was doing.
In the spring of 2025, his unit was given a mission from which, he says, no one could have returned alive—before them, around 150 people had already been killed there. Forty men got into vehicles and drove away from the front. To this day, no search has been launched for them.
As Maksym tells Meduza, two years at the front destroyed his marriage—his wife told him they had long since been living different lives. “Everything I could give to the country, I have already given,” he says. His time, his health, two years of his life.
At the same time, Maksym is the only one of them who speaks about the war with open pain for his country. He says he understands the president. He says that if Odesa were occupied, he would stand to the very end. He wants to go home—and believes he will return at the first ceasefire. “I’d ride on the roof if I had to—just get me to Ukraine,” he says.
A Divide That Cannot Be Avoided
The decision by Zelensky’s office to allow young men to leave the country has split Ukrainian society. Demographers warn that many will not return, while an economy that has already lost about 27% of its workforce to mobilization and emigration risks losing the younger generation as well. Some Ukrainians who remained in the country regard those who left as deserters.
But those who left see it differently. They do not claim to be right. They say only that they made a choice—and are prepared to bear responsibility for it. Some plan to return in a year or two. Some—never. Some—as soon as a ceasefire is declared.
Behind each of these decisions lies not an abstraction but a specific life: a burned apartment, a dead uncle, an acquaintance killed in his own bed, two years on the front line. The war forced these people into adulthood before their time. And that is precisely why their choice—whatever it may be—deserves to be heard.