Since late August, when the authorities in Kyiv relaxed mobilisation rules and allowed men aged 18–22 to leave the country despite martial law, nearly 100,000 young people have left Ukraine, the British daily The Telegraph reported, citing data from the Polish Border Guard.

The newspaper recalled that following Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, martial law regulations had prevented men aged between 18 and 60 from leaving Ukraine, even if they were not eligible for conscription. In August, however, the mobilisation law was amended, lowering the minimum draft age from 27 to 25 and permitting men aged 18–22 to travel abroad.

By granting young Ukrainians more freedom to leave, the government hoped that many would later return to enlist voluntarily. It was also expected that the change would discourage families from sending teenage boys abroad before they turned 18, in an effort to avoid future conscription. President Volodymyr Zelensky warned in August that such practices risked weakening young Ukrainians’ ties with their homeland, The Telegraph reminded.

At present, the Ukrainian army numbers around 800,000 troops. According to the US-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), between 60,000 and 100,000 have been killed since the start of the full-scale war.

Poland’s Border Guard reported that from January to the end of August, just before the legal changes, around 45,300 Ukrainian men aged 18–22 entered Poland. In the following two months, that number more than doubled to 98,000, with an average of 1,600 crossing the border each day.

In Germany, the number of young Ukrainian arrivals rose from several dozen per week to about 1,000 by mid-September, and to between 1,400 and 1,800 by mid-October, the paper noted, citing local German media.

The influx of Ukrainian men into Germany has increased pressure on Chancellor Friedrich Merz to tighten refugee assistance. The far-right AfD party has urged Berlin to halt support for Ukrainians and to cease military aid to Kyiv.

Meanwhile, the United States announced that it will reduce the number of its troops stationed in NATO’s eastern flank countries. However, the US Army’s European Command stressed that this does not signal a “withdrawal from Europe, nor a weakening of America’s commitment to NATO or Article 5,” The Telegraph underlined.

Photo: @visegrad24/X

Tomasz Modrzejewski