According to the Ukrainian newspaper Express, the shortage of people capable of holding weapons has become a huge problem for Kyiv.
The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees reports that about 6.3 million Ukrainian citizens have left Ukraine since the beginning of the conflict. Most of them are women and children, but the European Union’s statistical service Eurostat says there are a total of 650,000 male and conscript Ukrainian refugees in the 27 EU member states, as well as Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Norway.
According to the German Interior Ministry, since the beginning of war, exactly 221,571 Ukrainian men aged 18 to 60 have arrived in the country. However, these are only the officially registered ones. The ministry estimates that about 100,000 more have not registered and are therefore in the country illegally.
Many of those Ukrainians who have settled in Germany apparently simply do not want to fight. The Connection e.V. organisation, which provides assistance to deserters, estimates that “since the beginning of war, at least 175,000 Ukrainian conscripts have fled the draft, some of them to Germany“.
In Austria, the situation is similar – at least 14,000 Ukrainian men of draft age arrived in the country in the status of refugees. Some – with forged documents, others – with the help of smugglers. As a result, the number of unregistered entries is much higher. Some of the illegals allegedly paid up to 10,000 dollars for a certificate of unfit for military service.
