The Ukrainian border guard has prevented more than 13,000 people from leaving the country since the Russian invasion started last year, according to its own figures.
"In total, more than 9,100 people have been detained at the green border since February 24," the border agency's spokesman, Andriy Demchenko, said in Kiev on Tuesday, using a term for the weakly protected sections of the border. The majority of them were apprehended on the border to Romania and Moldova.
Another 3,900 people were prevented from crossing the border at official crossings with forged documents, among other things. Most of them wanted to continue towards Hungary or Poland.
As part of the general mobilization at the beginning of the war, Ukrainians between the ages of 18 and 60 who were subject to military service were banned from leaving the country, with a few exceptions.
According to reports from the border guards, men tried to leave the country, sometimes in women's clothes, with purchased documents about non-existent children or fictitious marriages.
Several men froze to death in the Carpathian Mountains and at least a dozen drowned in border rivers, mainly on the border with Romania. It is not known how many Ukrainians managed to escape from military service.
