Up to a hundred Ukrainian citizens, mostly men, were gathered on Wednesday in front of a passport centre in Warsaw, unable to pick up their documents, after Kyiv suspended consular services as part of a drive to increase conscription.
Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s foreign minister,
wrote on Twitter/X on Tuesday: “Staying abroad does not relieve a citizen of his or her duties to the Homeland.
When asked how he feels about Ukraine’s efforts to get men living abroad to fight in the war, Sergey replied: “This feels like North Korea.”
“I have supported Ukraine as much as I could since the war started, I’ve raised money and sent it to folks back there. But I’ve been living in Poland for ten years, my life is here, it makes no sense for me to go and fight in the war of a country I am no longer living in,” he said.
While Kuleba’s post claimed that Ukrainians living abroad are not interested in helping with the war effort but still “want to receive services from this state”, the men waiting in line in Warsaw mostly shared the feeling that they don’t owe Ukraine anything.