We can help Kyiv with the return of men of military age, said the Polish minister. Things are boiling over among the Ukrainians there

“(Ukrainians’) complaints about compatriots leaving the country to avoid conscription are justified,” Kosiniak-Kamysz told Polsat. “Citizens of Ukraine have obligations to their state,” he added.

“We have been saying for a long time that we are able to help the Ukrainian side to ensure that those who are obliged to perform military service go to Ukraine,” the Polish defense chief said. When asked whether Poland would agree to Ukraine’s request for help in transporting the men back to their homeland, the Polish minister replied that “everything is possible”.

Ukrainians of military age will be able to obtain a passport only in their homeland

The war in Ukraine

The Polish defense minister’s remarks came shortly after the Ukrainian government approved a law that would allow men between the ages of 18 and 60 who want to leave Ukraine or are outside Ukraine to obtain a Ukrainian passport only in their own country. The law will enter into force in mid-May.

Meanwhile, Polish media reported this week that large queues formed at Ukrainian consulates in Poland when passport issuance was halted due to an alleged computer system failure. However, the Ukrainians standing in front of the consulates were skeptical of the official rationale and the atmosphere was very tense.

“I called friends in Ukraine and the same system works there. They lie to us. They want to force us to return to the country at any cost,” said 34-year-old Vadim, for example, to the Wirtualna Polska news website, whose reporter visited the office in Warsaw.

I will not let my son become a piece of meat, cried the mother

“Each of us has friends and colleagues who died on the front. They won’t make me come back. I would have given up my citizenship earlier. Everyone has the right to decide for themselves,” a man named Dmytro told the same website.

For example, there was a woman in the crowd with her 18-year-old son, who also couldn’t pick up his passport. During the call, according to the website, she burst into tears, saying that she would not send her son to be “made into a piece of meat.” “I don’t understand what we did. How could they take such radical steps against us?” the woman asked.

If “a man of conscription age went abroad, he showed his state that it did not care about his survival. And then he comes and wants to receive services from this state. It does not work like that. Our country is at war,” https://twitter.com/DmytroKuleba/status/1782698925100589223?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1782698925100589223%7Ctwgr%5Efaadd5b2f7919eccd414a6ffd56052446d3af21a%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fnotesfrompoland.com%2F2024%2F04%2F25%2Fpoland-offers-to-help-ukraine-bring-back-draft-age-men-to-serve-in-war%2F this week on the social network X Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba. “Staying abroad does not absolve a citizen of his obligations towards his homeland,” he pointed out.

The largest number of Ukrainian refugees now live in Germany (more than 1.2 million), followed by Poland (over 951 thousand) and the Czech Republic (over 381 thousand), according to Eurostat data published this March.