Tobias Sylvester 
Despite widespread criticism online, a vibrant young man has managed to successfully avoid compulsory military service by staying married to a disabled woman 57 years his senior for almost two years.
In late 2017, Alexander Kondratyuk, a young man from the Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia, received his conscription papers and he was to report to the nearest military commissariat for enlistment in his country’s one-year military service.
According to reports, all able-bodied Ukrainian men aged between 18 and 26 are required to undergo military service unless a particular young man is responsible for looking after a disabled wife.
So, Alexander managed to convince his cousin’s 81-year-old disabled grandmother to become his bride, all in bid to be exempted from the military service, and the trick has since worked for him.
According to Odditycentral, the military commissariat in Vinnitsa filed a complaint with the prosecutor’s office in hopes of getting the marriage between the then 22-year-old Alexander Kondratyuk and Zinaida Illarionovna, 57 years his senior, annulled.
They thought the young man had forged the weird marriage to avoid being conscripted but an investigation showed that the pair had legally gotten married in the village of Baykovka, near Vinnitsa.
Checks from the civil acts registration office in 2018 also confirmed the marriage, so he was left off the hook.
Well, it is clear to many people within the Vinnytsia region that Alexander’s marriage to the octogenarian was a predetermined strategy to avoid the military service but there is no option but to respect their union.
24-year-old Kondratyuk continues to deny that he only married 81-year-old Zinaida to avoid military service, and insists that he has strong feelings for her. His octogenarian wife also told reporters that Alexander is a good husband who looks after her. The woman’s neighbours, on the other hand, told a local TV station that the marriage was a total sham.
Zinaida Illarionovna is more likely to be visited by her nephews and grandchildren than by her young husband, according to her neighbours, and the only proof of their marriage is the certificate that Kondratyuk always shows the draft board when they come in the area to enlist new recruits.
Aleksandr Danilyuk, the director of the commissariat in charge of conscription is reported as saying that even if the assertion was true, there is nothing to do about it since there are valid documents to prove that he is married to 81-year-old Zinaida Illarionovna who is also a registered disabled woman.
As it stands now, Alexander is married to a disabled woman and for that reason is legally exempted from the compulsory military service, unless something happens to his wife Zinaida and she dies before Alexander turns 27 years.
Maybe, he would file for divorce after turning 27 when he is not qualified to do the military service.
