Poland and Lithuania could send men who have evaded conscription back to Ukraine. Their number exceeds 150,000

Poland and Lithuania have declared themselves willing to collaborate with Ukraine so that it can bring back to the country its men capable of serving in the army, AFP reports on Thursday, quoted by Agerpres. According to some UN data, there are more than 150,000 men of mobilization age in Poland.

After more than two years of war with Russia, Ukraine needs new soldiers among its depleted and exhausted troops. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitro Kuleba considers it incorrect that men who can be mobilized stay abroad while their compatriots die at the front.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who last year dismissed all the commanders of the country’s military commissariats in order to eliminate a vast corrupt system through which eligible men evade conscription, reduced the age of conscription from 27 to 25 and promulgated on April 16 a new mobilization law, which eases the procedures for incorporation and toughens the penalties against those who try to evade it.

“It’s not fair to the citizens who are fighting”

During this time, the authorities in Kiev aim to repatriate the men who are fit for the army, but who managed to leave the country, although the martial law adopted with the launch of the Russian invasion stipulates that men between the ages of 18 and 60 are prohibited from leaving the territory national. As part of this effort, Ukraine this week suspended consular services for citizens of mobilization age living abroad, except for those necessary to return to the country.

Poland, the country where, according to the UN refugee agency, 952,104 Ukrainian refugees, of which 152,656 are men of mobilization age, are officially registered, has expressed its readiness to collaborate with Ukraine for their repatriation.

“I am not at all surprised that the Ukrainian authorities are doing everything to send soldiers to the front,” said Polish Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz. “We have been suggesting for a long time that we can help the Ukrainian side to ensure that people subject to mandatory military service go to Ukraine,” he explained in the same statement, given to the Polsat television station.

“Everything is possible,” replied the Polish minister after being asked if the government in Warsaw would respond positively to a possible request from Kiev to transport the mobilizable men to Ukraine.

His Lithuanian counterpart, Laurynas Kasciunas, declared on the same day that his country could follow Poland’s example in this regard. “I think this is the right solution,” he told the press, referring to the Polish minister’s remarks.

“Ukraine has a great lack of mobilizable reserves (…) It is not fair to the citizens who are fighting for their country,” said the Lithuanian defense minister. He refused to say how many Ukrainian men have taken refuge in Lithuania, saying only that their number is small.