The Polish government has called upon other European nations to halt welfare benefits to Ukrainian men of military age. “Stop paying those social security payments for people who are eligible for the Ukrainian draft. There should be no financial incentives for avoiding the draft in Ukraine,” Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski said on Friday, September 13th, at a conference in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv.
Around 970,000 Ukrainian refugees have fled to neighbouring Poland since the start of Russia’s invasion two-and-a-half years ago. About a third of them—300,000 people—are men of military age, according to Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha, who added that there are an estimated one million men in total who have left Ukraine.
As we previously reported, Ukraine is finding it hard to replenish its forces and mobilise new recruits. To address the situation, the government lowered the compulsory military service age from 27 to 25 and introduced legislation under which ‘draft dodgers’ can be fined and detained. The foreign ministry cancelled its consular services for military-age men living abroad, saying that they should not be entitled to their country’s services while it is at war.
Under Ukraine’s martial law, men between the ages of 18-60, with some exceptions, are not allowed to leave the country.
Poland has been one of Ukraine’s staunchest supporters, providing a vast array of weapons and leading the line of Western countries that believe that Ukraine has to keep fighting to stop Russia’s advance inside Ukraine, and potentially into other parts of Europe.
The Ukrainian counteroffensive against Russia last year did not yield any results, and Russia has since made advances in the Donbas region, having captured almost 1,000 sq km in August and the first eight days of September. Russia has a significant advantage in staff numbers and weapons on the battlefield.
Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski has no sympathy for men who are trying to evade the war. “It’s not a human right to be paid to avoid the draft, to defend your country. We in Poland don’t do it,” he said in Kyiv. Sikorski said that ending financial aid to Ukrainian men would save countries like the Netherlands and Germany “tens of billions of euros,” and it would encourage more Ukrainians to return home and enlist in the fight against Russia.
His Ukrainian counterpart, Andriy Sybiha, welcomed the call, saying: “It’s time really to raise the question of the European Union developing programmes to return Ukrainians home. Certainly, appropriate conditions should be created for this. But this should be on the agenda.”
Mobilisation has been a divisive issue in a nation exhausted by the war, and there have been a growing number of news reports of draft officers confronting men in the streets, and military-age men trying to evade service by either fleeing the country or bribing officials. Criminal groups charge between $7,000 and $10,000 to provide fake certificates declaring individuals unfit for military service due to fabricated health conditions.
