FROM A GYM IN GERMANY

EUROPEAN GYMS ARE in turmoil following the release of video showing Ukrainian military recruiting personnel wrestling young men from fitness clubs away for service in the front line of the country’s war against Russia.

“The initial euphoria has come to a halt in the face of heavy losses in the Donbas and elsewhere,” says armchair strategist Hokum Wannabee. “Call of Duty is one thing, having your limbs and balls blown off is quite something else. So while volunteering has slowed, even conscription is being met with skepticism. Conscripts tend to be people who if offered the choice would not go anyway. After two years of grinding trench warfare, the remains of Ukrainian manhood is getting less and less inclined to come forward even when their name is officially called. Those who can buy their way out with bribes or wangle their way out with connections. Ukraine was a corrupt country before the war; it is infinitely more so since the war began. Front line soldiers have already begun to criticize the elites in Kyiv whose children are far away, dancing in the nightclubs of Europe and beyond. Rich man’s war, poor man’s fight is an age old complaint.”

The very large amount of Ukrainians who have left the country since the outbreak of war means that there are literally millions of men who might be recruited lying outside the jurisdiction of the Ukrainian Government. And quite a few of them use gyms in their countries of refuge. Eastern European men are known for body building.

“The Ukrainian Government is in the process of privatizing military recruitment, and the fear is, if paid by the head, privatized recruiters will not allow borders to interfere with their work,” says human rights lawyer Lucy Lipshine KC, an Australian barrister based in Gaza, where she is monitoring the treatment of captured LGBTQIA+ Hamas fighters by the Israelis. “The gyms of Europe are barrels of fish as far as the recruiters are concerned. There for the taking. And word is getting around. Not only are Ukrainians ending their gym memberships – and we all know how difficult that is – but anyone who looks remotely Ukrainian or even Eastern European is doing the same. This is becoming a major drain on the European fitness industry and could indeed lead to huge health problems in the future. The law of unintended consequences, you could say. It’s a cause of genuine fear.”