Ukraine is looking to halt the pattern of potential troops from leaving the country by prohibiting conscription-age men from renewing their passports abroad.
The Cabinet of Ministers said late Wednesday that men between 18 and 60 years old who are deemed fit for military service will only be able to renew their passports inside Ukraine.
Millions of Ukrainians have fled the country since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, mostly to neighboring European countries.
About 4.3 million Ukrainians are living in EU countries, 860,000 of them men 18 years of age or older, according to the European Union’s statistics agency, Eurostat.
The defense minister of Poland, home to one of the biggest Ukrainian diasporas, said the country was ready to help “in ensuring that those who are subject to compulsory military service go to Ukraine”.
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Russia’s population of almost 150 million dwarfs Ukraine’s 38 million, and Moscow can draw on a much bigger army.
Earlier this month, Ukraine lowered the conscription age from 27 to 25 in an effort to bolster the size of its military.
Russia is advancing against outnumbered and outgunned soldiers in the south and east of Ukraine, which needs more troops.
Ukrainian soldiers are receiving $61 billion in additional U.S. military assistance, signed into law by US President Biden on Wednesday, to survive their two-year battle with Russia.
U.S. officials also confirmed Wednesday that the United States last month secretly sent Ukraine a number of long-range missiles that Kyiv has urgently sought so that its forces can hit Russian forces well behind the front lines.
Ukraine used them for the first time last week to strike an airfield in occupied Crimea.
