TLTR: The international laws on war are based on the fiction that only armies are fighting. The article is also quite gender-biased, even insulting.<p>I consider that the fight of Ukraine against Putin's invasion is fundamentally the defense of Human Rights and democracy.<p>However, the ban of leaving the country for men doesn't necessarily imply the obligation for all of them to carry a weapon.<p>Just consider the millions of men in Ukraine and the few hundreds thousands who are on the front.<p>In such a war, fighting is not only on the front. The nurse is fighting, even in an hospital hundreds of miles from the front. A cook who prepare meals for the drivers need to supply the front, he is fighting too.<p>The LGBT+ case is - in my opinion - very dubious and even insulting. As if a gay man could not be a warrior. Many other men are facing specific threats if captured, like elected officials who organize civil defense, Jewish people will probably be mistreated or worse etc.<p>Mothers and their children, aged people, and people who need it for various reasons should be evacuated. But I can't help feeling that the restriction on men only is nothing but a gender bias, like the LGBT+ already mentioned.<p>Women can fight, both in the front or wherever they are or feel more relevant to. Kurdish women have proved it quite enough, among many other examples. You don't need a pair to be a warrior. Women, gays, queers, transgenders, ..., can fight as hard as heterosexual men.<p>In the end, the whole article is based on the idea that only "army men" are supposed to fight in a war. That may be true according to international laws, but these laws are a pure fiction. During the XXth century, more than 80% of casualties were civilians.<p>A war is a fight of two countries, not two armies. Not that I like it, but just look at the facts. Ukraine is fighting back as a country, hence their incredible toughness and fortitude.