By Roland Oliphant, The Daily Telegraph (UK), 4/28/24
When Russia invaded Ukraine two years ago, Vladimir sent his ex-wife and their four-year-old son abroad for safety.
Like most Ukrainian men, he stayed behind, barred from leaving by martial law. But after two years alone, and having been declared medically unfit to serve, he decided to join the family in Germany.
“A child needs a father,” he said.
Now, he could be stranded after a controversial law stripped fighting age men abroad of consular assistance. Those between 18- and 60-years-old will only be able to replace their passports in the Ukraine, meaning they will have to return to the country – and risk the draft.
The move, designed to help plug a dire manpower gap in the country’s armed forces, addresses long-running tensions over men who managed to evade a ban on foreign travel for the duration of the war. But critics, including some serving soldiers, have warned it may be unconstitutional and will simply encourage those who are already overseas to stay away. Poland has suggested it could even deport Ukrainian men back to their home country for conscription.
For his part, Vladimir, 39, will not be heeding the call and returning: “It was morally difficult [to leave] but I decided my family needs me. I don’t feel any kind of pressure from family or friends to go back. My mates all understand my situation.”
Units undermanned
Ukraine’s military commissariats, or local recruiting offices, were overwhelmed with volunteers in the first months of the invasion. But ebbing enthusiasm and high casualties over the past two years have left many units dangerously undermanned.
Ukrainian and Western military planners have identified the manpower shortage as one of three critical issues that must be addressed if Ukraine is to resist the current Russian offensive and eventually regain the initiative.
“The immediate focus has been on munitions, especially air defence artillery, on fortifications, which includes proper defensive lines, and thirdly, on this question of manpower,” one Western official said of recent talks with Ukraine.
“As far as putting people on planes goes, we have not been asked about that and I don’t imagine being asked about it either,” the official added when asked if his government would send Ukrainian men home.
The Ukrainian government has taken a number of measures to raise new recruits, including lowering the draft age from 27 to 25.
But Wednesday’s announcement appears to have caused some confusion within the Ukrainian government. One Ukrainian official told the Telegraph that they were not entirely sure how the law would work because issues like exemptions for those legitimately unable to fight – such as Vladimir – do not seem to have been addressed.
Dmytro Lazutkin, the press secretary of the Ukrainian ministry of defence, said there were no plans to issue conscription notices overseas.
“The ministry of defence cannot comment on the actions of the foreign ministry. I think it’s pretty unrealistic,” he told Radio Free Europe.
It has also drawn a mixed reaction from Ukraine’s allies. Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz, Poland’s defence minister, said “Ukrainian citizens have obligations towards the state”, and that Warsaw would help “in ensuring that those who are subject to compulsory military service go to Ukraine”.
German authorities have said some Ukrainian men will be able to extend their residency in the country even if their passports expire as long as there is some way to identify them.
Men between the ages of 18 and 60 have officially been banned from leaving Ukraine since the president Volodymyr Zelensky introduced martial law on the first day of the Russian invasion in 2022.
In practice, many were able to obtain exemptions, either by being declared unfit for military service, having three or more children, or by gaining special permission to travel from the government. Others have tried to leave illegally, some by smuggling themselves across Ukraine’s western borders. Mr Zelensky cracked down on officials abusing exemptions to travel last year. The bar for being passed fit to serve has also been lowered.
The European Union’s statistics agency, Eurostat, says 4.3 million Ukrainians are living in EU countries, 860,000 of them men 18 years of age or older. The British government says it has issued 256,200 visas under its scheme for Ukrainian refugees. It is not clear how many of them were for fighting age men.
Ukrainian men living abroad told the Telegraph they had no plans to return to fight and considered the law unfair.
“The law is not fair”
“My passport is still valid,” 39-year-old Vladimir said, “but I think for many people who came here from occupied areas like Mariupol, the situation is a bit insulting. Russia destroyed their homes, and now their own country is taking a stick to them.”
Volodymyr, a builder from Western Ukraine who has been living and working in the Czech Republic for most of the past eight years, said: “The law is not fair. And all my Ukrainian friends from the Czech Republic, Lutsk and Kyiv think so. Nobody is happy with it. The government is forcing us, and with such laws we will step away from them. We will take citizenship in other countries.”
“People won’t return. The longer the war goes on, the more laws like this are passed, the more people hate Ukraine and the government. Why should I return to fight? For what? Why didn’t the government care about labour migrants like me before the war?”
“Every day we have less and less territory and fewer and fewer people. Some have been killed, others swam the Tisza river just to escape.” The Tisza, a tributary of the Danube, marks a 10-mile stretch of Ukraine’s border with Hungary.
One man, who admitted leaving the country illegally and is currently in Indonesia, said he felt no obligation to fight for the country and considered himself an observer rather than a participant in the war.
Perhaps surprisingly, the law has even drawn criticism from some soldiers. “I absolutely agree with them,” said Nikita Rozhenko, a recruiting sergeant with Ukraine’s Kharkiv-based 113th brigade, when asked what he thought of their opinions. “To tell them they left Ukraine so they are not Ukrainians any more is not normal. We need to invite people back, to greet them gladly, and not tell them they are not Ukrainians. It’s bulls***.”
“This law won’t work properly. It is a political compromise and no one wants to take responsibility. It is not good for the military and it is not good for civilians. It is for everyone and no one.”
Sgt Rozhenko, who lost an eye in the first year of the war but like many wounded is still deemed fit for service and cannot demobilise, admits current recruitment is dire. While his ideal soldier would be 27- to 30-years-old, the average candidate is around 45 or 50, from the social and economic margins of society, and often in poor health.
“The doctors pass them as capable. When they get to their units the commanders see people who are tired, with bad health, some with chronic diseases,” he said.
The fix, he argues, is not threatening people overseas, but allowing people to choose their units.
“No one has listened to the military. The military wants straight recruitment to the brigades without going through the commissariats. It will be much more effective and much fairer. This will lead us to victory and the people will serve where they want, how they want, and with people they want,” he said.
“Lots of people want to serve, they just don’t want to be assigned to a ‘meat brigade’,” he said, using soldier’s slang for units where “low level commanders and high level commanders don’t give a f*** about their people.”
He refused to give examples, but said all soldiers knew who the good and bad units and commanders were.
“Brigades who understand people are very valuable and must be kept alive” would naturally expand and grow stronger, while the poorly one units would wither and eventually disappear, he argues. Ultimately Ukraine would end up with a more efficient and professional military.
“It would be like free market recruitment – and now we have the USSR.”