Hundreds of Ukrainians crowd outside a passport office in Warsaw, closed on Wednesday, angry after kyiv’s decision to suspend consular services for expatriate men of fighting age.
The day before, the Ukrainian authorities announced that they would prevent “temporarily” men aged 18 to 60 to access consular services. The Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dmytro Kouleba, considers it unfair to give them full access to public services when their compatriots die on the front.
In Poland, home to hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians (refugees who arrived since Russian aggression but also nationals living in the country for a long time), anger is growing among those who feel unfairly targeted. “This is a fight against those who flee the army”said Maksym, a 38-year-old truck driver, who came to collect his papers. “We are not asked why we went abroad… Why would I be (considered as) a draft evader if I left legally?”he confided to AFP.
Some spent the night queuing in front of the closed counters of the document issuing office, which suggests a closure for “technical error” not to mention a new directive from kyiv.
“The State placed me in a hopeless situation,” believes businessman Pavlo Liachenko. He tells AFP that he received a text message announcing that his passport was ready, but he now fears that it will be refused. “The doors are blocked. They are afraid that if I return, I will not leave without having received my passport”says Liachenko, 35 years old.
kyiv assured on Tuesday that the suspension of the issuance of papers only applied to new applications and that those submitted before this date would be honored.
Liachenko, who lived abroad well before the start of the war, nevertheless fears finding himself in an administrative gray zone, abroad without a valid passport.
“I think our state is just pushing people to get to the point where we’re all going to have to go through it,” he believes.
Despite a few exceptions, the majority of men are no longer allowed to leave Ukraine since the Russian invasion. Which means that many of those who will no longer be able to extend their passport have been living abroad for years. According to Ukrainian media, hundreds of thousands of men of working age have, however, benefited from temporary protection in EU countries since the start of the war.
“Residing abroad does not exempt a citizen from his duties towards the homeland”, said Dmytro Kouleba on Tuesday. According to his ministry, the suspension of consular services constitutes a temporary measure, necessary to “solve technical problems” linked to the implementation of the new law.
Bogdan, a Ukrainian truck driver who refuses to give his last name, says he is stuck outside the passport office in Warsaw for the second day in a row. “I traveled 700 kilometers to get my passport because I received a text telling me that I could come and collect it”complains the 27-year-old young man. “We are not being given our passport. What are the next steps? (…) What do we have to do to just receive the documents we paid for?”
