Romance and parenthood feel remote in Ukraine: ‘I haven’t had a date since before the war’

Ukranian men killed in large numbers fighting the war with Russia. Ukranian women suffer more.

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One thought on “Romance and parenthood feel remote in Ukraine: ‘I haven’t had a date since before the war’

  1. Ukraine is an appalling experiment. Crucial to its demographic collapse is a gynocentric policy decision. “Millions of Ukrainian women who left at the start of the 2022 full-scale invasion have now built lives and relationships abroad. Hundreds of thousands of men are absent too, either deployed in the army or living outside the country.”

    around 90% of Ukrainian refugees are women and children, meaning roughly 4–5 million women and children

    I have mentioned a friend put up a woman and her child in that first rush. as a result out chapel has links with the “Ukrainian community” ( a small church for the German community has become one for the Ukrainian Community). For historical reasons following WW2 there has long been a Polish and Ukrainian community here. Anyway nearly 4 years on the women have settled. A few being joined by husbands but the majority finding local husbands (“English” or of Polish or Ukrainian British). Few will want to return to their impoverished homeland. I’m sure the same is true all across Europe. Which means of course a vast hole in the population, and of course a huge “shortage” of women for the men returning from war. One can’t help wondering if Policy makers regret the decision to wave goodbye to millions.

    The “absent” men are mainly in all forms of war work let alone armed services and are in effect “forced labour” with little control over their movements. Interestingly the men interviewed have no illusions about what this means for their prospects for a date or partner. Confirmed by Khrystyna’s list of unsuitable men; traumatised soldiers, draft dodgers, servicemen in general who get little leave to come home and woo her and young men who might leave to go abroad. Confirming the men’s estimation.

    Some might wonder why the Ukrainian conscription is from 25, rather than the 18 or 19 commonly seen. And its partly because the Ukrainian Parliament recognised they’d need vigorous young men to rebuild and couldn’t afford to be losing 1000s in the grinding trench war the conflict has become. A rare example of valuing young men!

    The pictures used say a great deal about the BBC and the audience. Daria looks out at us, in a comfortable room (bar?/club) large glass of wine and dressed fashionably. Like those pictures of young women in adverts and articles in so many magazines and TV output. Meanwhile Denys is pictured in Army gear, driving and not even in full profile, we see little of his face and certainly not enough to empathise or connect with him. He is literally any soldier.

    Generally I avoid using war as an example of masculinity as its an extreme, I like for instance “DIY SOS” where in every episode 95% of the volunteers are men, but the Ukrainian situation and their comparative openness about impacts and problems as reported in French or German media reveals a lot about “gender” when there have to be hard choices.

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