2024-07-10 16:01:00
Ukraine is trying to convince its nationals of fighting age living in other European countries to join its armed forces by creating a new unit with the “Ukrainian Legion” based and trained in Poland, the minister announced Defense.
kyiv, whose army has been depleted by heavy losses after two and a half years of Russian invasion, is trying to replenish its ranks. The Ukrainian authorities have already stepped up mobilization within the country, especially thanks to a new law adopted in May. They are now trying to recruit people from among the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian men living in Europe, especially in Poland and Germany, some of whom fled the country illegally for fear of being mobilized.
“Special volunteer unit”
“Ukrainians in Poland and other European Union countries will be able to participate in the defense of Ukraine by signing a contract with the armed forces”, Minister Roustem Oumerov declared on social networks. The creation of this unit is provided for in a bilateral security agreement between Ukraine and Poland signed on Monday in Warsaw by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
It is about a “a special unit of volunteers who will train on the territory of Poland” et “It will be equipped with better weapons” Western forces before being deployed to the front in Ukraine, declared Oumerov. “We ask all Ukrainians in Europe to join the Ukrainian Legion”he declared, without giving details, however, on the number of men Kyiv hopes to recruit.
By touting training in Europe and modern weapons, the authorities are trying to convince, and in recent months the army has suffered from a lack of equipment due to delays in Western aid and rumors are spreading under the immediate dispatch of young recruits who are not. poorly trained and equipped.
Corruption scandals in the army, including the entrenched system of paying bribes to avoid mobilization, worsened the mobilization. kyiv estimates that there are currently 300,000 Ukrainians of fighting age in neighboring Poland.
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