Can send home warring Ukrainians

Poland may help Ukraine in the fight to get more soldiers to the battlefields.

– Everything is possible, says Minister of Defense Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz to the television company Polsat.

Kiev is struggling with increased alarms about sparsely manned trenches and a lack of new recruits for the front.

– We have long suggested that we can help the Ukrainian side to ensure that people subject to mandatory military service go to Ukraine, says Poland’s defense minister now.

Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians fled Ukraine when Russia invaded in February 2022, many of them via Poland. More than 150,000 Ukrainian men of fighting age are still in Poland, according to figures from the UN refugee agency UNHCR.

Kiev has recently hammered out a new mobilization law in light of the soldier shortage. This includes, among other things, a lowered age for mandatory mobilization and tougher penalties for those who evade their call-ups.

On Wednesday, the government announced that Ukrainian embassies will no longer issue passports to certain men of combat age. The announcement sparked anger among expatriate Ukrainians in Poland, among other places, according to AFP.