This week, new regulations on the departure of young Ukrainian men, who might be subject to military conscription, came into force in Ukraine.
If they are under 22, they can now cross the border unhindered. “We want Ukrainians to maintain as many ties with Ukraine as possible,” Ukraine’s Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said about the rule change.
Previously men aged between 18 and 60 had not been allowed to leave Ukraine. That’s because they might eventually be drafted into the army and the grinding fight against Russia, which invaded Ukraine in 2022.
However, up until now, the draft in Ukraine has only targeted local men aged 25 and older. In fact, men under 27 were not obliged to fight for the first two years of the war. Still, the threat meant many teenage boyswere leaving the country shortly before their 18th birthdays.
At the beginning of August, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy promised to open the borders for young men aged between 18 and 22. This has now happened.
“The goal of this step is, first and foremost, to provide young Ukrainians with broader opportunities for education, internships and legal employment abroad, so that the experience they gain can later be used for the development of Ukraine,” Ihor Klymenko, Ukraine’s minister of the interior, wrote on the messaging platform, Telegram. “We are doing our best to ensure that Ukrainian youth have access to quality education and international experience while remaining a strong part of our state.”
Some exceptions to new rule
Up to their 23rd birthday Ukrainian men can now cross the national borders at will, Andriy Demchenko, a colonel and the spokesperson of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine, told DW.
However the new regulations don’t apply to some individuals, he added — those holding certain positions in government agencies and state bodies or in regional, community-led administrations. “For this group of individuals, foreign travel can still only be undertaken as part of a business trip,” Demchenko said.
Because men of military age — that is, over 18 — were previously prohibited from leaving the country, many Ukrainian parents sent their children away before they reached that age. They feared that the draft age would be lowered and sent their children to study abroad. It’s an increasingly serious problem for Ukraine as more and more young men leave the country.
“We’re not mobilizing people under the age of 25,” Fedir Venislavskyi, a member of parliament for the ruling Servant of the People party, to which Zelenskyy also belongs, insisted. “And it’s wrong to deprive them of the opportunity to leave the country, or return home, if they are already studying abroad. It means we’re losing an entire generation,” said Venislavskyi, also a member of the parliamentary committee on national security, defense and intelligence. “Young people fear returning because they will then no longer be able to leave.”
Expert: Rule change will have negative impact
Oleksandr Hladun, a demographer and researcher at the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, isn’t so sure. Hladun doesn’t think that the new rules will lead to more young Ukrainians returning.
“This decision will lead to people leaving. No one will return,” he told DW. “On the one hand, the authorities say there aren’t enough people at the frontline and in the rear, and that foreigners are needed for jobs, and then they encourage men to leave,” he argues. He thinks the rule change will only make these problems worse.
A survey conducted this summer by the Ukraine polling institute Rating Group, found that among young Ukrainians aged between 18 and 29 many would like to live outside the country permanently.
“About 10% of all Ukrainians say they would like to live abroad permanently,” says Oleksiy Antypovych, chief executive of Rating Group. “For people aged 18 to 29, this proportion is around 20%, or one in five. That’s quite a lot.”
However, Antypovych doesn’t see this as a significant problem. “It’s clear that young men in particular want to go abroad because they could be drafted from 25 onwards,” he told DW. “But let’s be honest. We’re in the fourth year of this war and all the parents who wanted to take their children out of the country or to study abroad have already done so.”
That’s why Antypovych believes the new rules “won’t have a critical impact on demographics or on anything else in the country.”
This story was originally published in Ukrainian.
