bigger focus has been on how these men are avoiding their duties as citizens to protect their country, lives and freedom

How would they be protecting their lives by going into a war zone? And if their freedom was important they wouldn't be getting pressed into service; as for protecting their country, no one cared that they were shirking that responsibility when they allowed Azov militia members to kill ethnic Russians (who identified as Ukrainian until they were being ethnically cleansed) without defending that part of their country. Why weren't Ukrainians defending that part of the country?