Zelenskyi reached into the hornet’s nest: he wants to force Ukrainians living abroad to go home to fight

Opening photo: Genya Savilov / POOL / AFP

Men between the ages of 18 and 60 can no longer receive any documents at consular offices outside of Ukraine, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry announced at the beginning of the week, and the new rule came into effect on April 23. Based on these, passports will not be issued at the consulates from now on, and their validity cannot be extended, and from now on, these cases – for an indefinite period of time – can only be dealt with upon returning to Ukraine.

The goal: to persuade Ukrainian men abroad to return home and enlist in the army. Needless to say, the Ukrainian refugees have different ideas about this. After the announcement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, the Ukrainians stormed the passport center in Warsaw, and several videos of this were uploaded to the X social media site. Needless to say, tempers quickly flared, especially after the men were not even issued passports, saying that “their system is down”while documents could be issued to women and children.

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According to Eurostat estimates, about 4.3 million Ukrainians lived in EU countries in January 2024. About 860,000 of them are men of military age.