Ukraine says it caught man trying to flee country by paddling on inflatable mattress to Moldova

• A man was caught trying to leave Ukraine via the Dniester River – on an air mattress.

• Ukrainian border agents found him paddling with his arms in an attempt to reach Moldova.

• Border Services said he paid another person $4,200 for advice on the crossing.

Ukrainian border services said on Wednesday they had arrested a man who tried to enter Moldova by “swimming” on an inflatable mattress in the Dniester River.

The State Border Service released images of the 39-year-old man lying face down on the mattress and paddling in the water with his arms.

He was fully dressed, wearing a hoodie, long pants, and a pair of sneakers while carrying a backpack.

Law enforcement spotted him with a drone, then joined the man in a boat and arrested him, the border service said in a statement.

Border authorities said the unnamed Dnipro resident contacted a person on a messaging app who coordinated his attempted crossing for about $4,200.

The border service said the money was intended for instructions on how to use the mattress and how to store a cell phone and a change of clothes.

The man had already paid half the money in advance, authorities added.

He is accused of illegally attempting to cross the border and his case will be taken to court, they said.

It is unclear why the man was trying to cross into Moldova.

Thousands of men have fled Ukraine in hopes of escaping the country’s military conscription. The recent exodus has grown so much that smugglers in the mountainous regions are turning away from importing contraband to guiding holdouts, the New York Times reported.

Border services did not say whether the man on the mattress was trying to avoid the draft.

But many holdouts have attempted to swim out of the country, with up to 6,000 men found on the Romanian side of the Tysa River since the Russian invasion began, according to the New York Times.

Some use Telegram groups to evade enlisted officers, with several groups numbering up to 100,000 members, the BBC reported in August.

Two years after the start of the war, Russia and Ukraine are still locked in fierce fighting that Ukraine says it will lose without foreign help. The United States, for its part, is contributing about $60 billion in aid this year, including NATO weapons and equipment.

Ukraine has stepped up efforts to replenish its depleted forces through an expanded conscription that since mid-April has been recruiting men 25 and older. The conscription age was previously 27, but was lowered by the Ukrainian parliament on April 11.

In a move to support conscription, Ukraine said Tuesday it would temporarily stop issuing passports to foreign service-age men abroad, meaning anyone trying to get a renewal will have to return home. An estimated 650,000 Ukrainian men aged 18 to 60 left the country after the Russian invasion.

This is not the first time Ukrainian border services have caught someone in an air mattress incident. In February, border authorities said they had arrested two foreign agents planning to transport a 37-year-old kyiv resident to Hungary via a river.

Officers found an inflatable mattress and pump in their car and said the kyiv resident was wearing a diving suit.

The man agreed to pay $4,000 for the attempted crossing, border authorities said.

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