Ukraine has suspended consular services for men of conscription age living abroad to pressure them to return home and fight.
The agency Reuters write:
Ukraine on Tuesday suspended consular services for male citizens of military age until May 18, criticizing Ukrainians abroad who it said expected to receive aid from the state without helping it fight for survival in the war against Russia.
Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian men of conscription age live abroad and the country faces an acute shortage of troops against a larger, better-equipped enemy nearly 26 months after Russia’s invasion.
Ukraine last week passed a law overhauling how it mobilizes civilian men into the armed forces to make the process more efficient, addressing what military analysts say is a key challenge if it is to hold out against advancing Russian troops.
Poland and Lithuania have said they could help return Ukrainian men of military age to Ukraine, as Kiev looks for more conscripts to put on the front line, where Ukrainian forces face a brutal battle and an advancing Russian army.
The comments came after Ukraine announced it was suspending consular services for military-age men living abroad as a way to pressure them to return home to fight. The restrictions include banning men aged 18 to 60 from applying for a passport while abroad.
Polish Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said on Wednesday that Warsaw has “suggested for a long time that we can help the Ukrainian side to ensure that persons subject to [obligatorisk] military service, going to Ukraine”. Asked if Poland would agree to transport Ukrainians back to Ukraine, he said: “Everything is possible.”
Lithuanian Defense Minister Laurynas Kasciunas said Vilnius was also willing to help send Ukrainians back to fight. He suggested that Lithuania would not be willing to deport Ukrainians physically, but could pressure them in other ways.
“Of course, no one will collect them and take them to Ukraine – this will not happen,” Kasciunas said. “But (it is possible to create restrictions for these people) in terms of social benefits, work permits, documents – these are options that I hear from the Polish side as well. So let’s wait and see what alternative they will offer, maybe it will also be suitable for Lithuania”.
It is estimated that around 860,000 Ukrainian men live outside Ukraine in Europe. Some were able to leave Ukraine despite martial law banning men aged 18 to 60 from leaving the country. Others lived outside Ukraine before Russia launched its invasion in February 2022.
Former defense chief: – Ukrainian men capable of fighting in Norway should be sent home
In total, there are now 15,860 Ukrainian men of “fighting age” who have received collective protection in Norway as of 31 March.
Former chief of defense and general Harald Sunde believes that Ukrainian men of serviceable age have a moral duty to return to Ukraine to join the defense war against Russia.
In Ukraine, men of conscription age do everything they can to escape service, which they know is something close to the safe door.
New York Times write:
In Ukraine’s West, Draft Dodgers Run, and Swim, to Avoid the War
The West may supply weapons, but it is the Ukrainians who will die in this attempt to harm and decimate Russia. And then they get a chance to die for NATO and the war industry. Because our domestic war enthusiasts have no intention of enlisting, do they?
More than 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers have deserted from the armed forces of Ukraine. stated Aleksey Arestovich, former adviser to the office of the president of Ukraine, who fled to the United States. He said this in the video blog “Alpha and Omega”.
And at the front the soldiers desert:
