It is 9:00 in the morning. Buses and cars are passing slowly through the Shehyni checkpoint in the region of Lviv, a city close to Ukraine's border with Poland. There is no line for pedestrians, most of whom are elderly people, women and children. There are also several men of all ages.

At the end of August, the Ukrainian government allowed men aged 18 to 22 to leave the country, where martial law has been imposed since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.