For the past 18 months, Pavlo has barely left his house.

His reclusiveness has nothing to do with the Russian bombs and drones pounding Kyiv. It is not the air strikes he fears, but his own Ukrainian countrymen.

It is draft officers, seeking to press-gang able-bodied men like him into units bound for the front that he dreads.

Pavlo is no conscientious objector. He regards himself as a patriot and never questions the righteousness of Ukraine’s cause. Yet he – and millions like him – will not fight for their country .

Reluctance to serve – or to keep serving, in the case of the ever-swelling number of deserters – has long troubled Ukraine.

Now, just as Donald Trump grants Vladimir Putin the one-on-one summit the Russian president has coveted for years , that reluctance is tipping in

See Full Page