Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski believes that the Ukrainian parliament is at least a year late in adopting the draft law on mobilisation. In his opinion, it would have been better to adopt such laws when there were still many volunteers, the minister said in an interview with Yevropeyska Pravda.
Sikorski admitted that he is surprised by what he sees in Poland. He also reminded that his country does not pay social assistance to able-bodied refugees.
"I go to a hairdresser in Warsaw, and a young Ukrainian hairdresser cuts my hair. And I have a question for him: "What are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be defending your country?" In Poland, we do not pay social assistance to such able-bodied refugees. They have to support themselves or work. But Western European governments are more generous. But I have a question: is it normal to create financial incentives for Ukrainian men to live in the EU rather than here in Ukraine?" Sikorski said.
He confirmed that Kyiv had approached Poland with a desire to return Ukrainians. He added that, for its part, the country has done everything to create the Ukrainian Legion, which refugees of military age should join on a voluntary basis.
"For our part, we have done everything long ago. Now we are waiting for Ukrainian conscripts or volunteers. As far as I understand, thousands of people in Poland have registered in your database to update their place of residence. That is, they have reported that they are theoretically available. But according to my information, there are still not enough volunteers ready to form a brigade," he said.
- Recently, Ukraine's Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga said that there are about a million men of conscription age abroad, 300,000 of them in Poland. According to him, Ukraine and Poland are working to create a unit of Ukrainian volunteers.