Ukraine: The war behind the war
The Documentary Podcast
BBC
4.3 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 9 March 2026
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
No one wants to do Major Serhiy Laziuk’s job. He travels from house to house in Lviv, western Ukraine, bringing families news of their loved ones at the front who are killed or missing in action. ‘I tell them I have a sealed letter, that I must deliver by hand,’ he says. Then he arrives at the door to break the news. Serhiy has delivered hundreds of notifications, often three or four a day. Small wonder that Ukraine is in a military recruitment crisis, with many men of fighting age asking for exceptions, or hiding in their houses. ‘Mykola’ hasn’t been outside for a year and a half for fear of the draft. He and his wife sent their teenage son out of Ukraine in 2022 at the start of the full scale invasion. Of course they want Ukraine to win the war, they say. But the price of sacrificing father or son is too high. This episode of The Documentary comes to you from Assignment, investigations and journeys into the heart of global events.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, radio, podcasts. |
| 0:06.0 | I don't want to be populist, I don't want to be a populist, I want to be a populist, I want to be a realist, said the new defence minister of Ukraine, Mikhailov Federov, in his inaugural speech to Parliament in January. He said that not only |
| 0:23.9 | was the ministry in debt, but two million Ukrainians were evading the draft, and 200,000 |
| 0:31.0 | servicemen were absent without leave. His message was blunt. If Ukraine is to move forward, |
| 0:39.0 | it must face the reality that many men of fighting age are not joining up. |
| 0:44.9 | This is the documentary from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:48.4 | I'm Richard Pendry, and I've been meeting people living inside Ukraine's recruitment crisis. |
| 0:55.5 | It's the war behind the war. |
| 1:06.5 | Major Sejee-Las-Yuk stands at the entrance to a grey apartment block in Leviv in western Ukraine, |
| 1:15.4 | a slight figure in a khaki uniform. |
| 1:20.1 | No one inside knows why he's coming. |
| 1:26.7 | Okay. I'm sorry. Hello. Hello. I'm sorry. |
| 1:29.3 | I'm sorry. |
| 1:30.3 | I'm going to |
| 1:33.3 | Shvchenkvskyi |
| 1:35.3 | Lajerlouk. |
| 1:37.3 | Yes. |
| 1:38.3 | Okay. |
| 1:39.3 | Can you open the door, please? |
| 1:41.3 | He says... |
| 1:42.3 | Thank you. |
| 1:43.3 | I waited outside while he went into Helena's apartment block alone. |
... |
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