Ukraine suspended consular services for men of conscription age abroad, except for those returning to Ukraine, on Tuesday (April 23), according to Reuters.
The war-torn country faced a shortage of troops on the battlefield against a larger and better-equipped Russia nearly 26 months after the outbreak of the war in February 2022. Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba stated that he had ordered measures to restore what he called fair treatment for men of mobilisation age.
How it looks like now: a man of conscription age went abroad, showed his state that he does not care about its survival, and then comes and wants to receive services from this state. It does not work this way. Our country is at war.
Kuleba added that the Foreign Ministry would soon clarify the procedure for men of conscription age to receive consular services. Experts noted that his decision could be related to the hugely debated new law aimed at improving and accelerating the process of mobilising civilians into the armed forces.
Staying abroad does not relieve a citizen of his or her duties to the homeland.
Some 4.3 million Ukrainians were registered in EU countries as of January 2024, of whom around 20% (about 860,000) were adult men, according to Eurostat.
The law, which comes into effect next month, will require all men of draft age to report to military registration centres to update their documents remotely or in person within 60 days. Conscript-age men abroad will need these documents to obtain consular services.
Meanwhile, it is reported that consulates in Poland, Finland and the Czech Republic have already stopped accepting documents for Ukrainian men of conscription age. The State Service of Ukraine stated that it had suspended the issuance of ready-made documents in foreign branches of SE (State Enterprise) Document “due to technical reasons”.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stated after a conversation with US President Joe Biden that the Congress-approved bill on military aid to Ukraine would serve as an additional motivation for the European Union to continue supporting Kyiv. She claimed that the allocation of the new US aid package would have a huge psychological effect.
Previously, the European Commission urged the Ukrainian authorities to implement a series of anti-corruption and judicial reforms, praising Kyiv’s progress in achieving the goals. The criteria for EU accession required the candidate country to observe the principles of freedom and respect for human rights. Officials, however, did not specify how the new mobilisation law reflected compliance with key EU principles.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky applied for the country’s accession to the EU on February 28, 2022. Kyiv was granted candidate status on June 23.
