Europe and Ukraine – the problem of refugees and deserters

Poland cannot endlessly accept refugees from Ukraine; instead, it needs to integrate the Ukrainians already living in the country into Polish society, Marcin Przydacz, head of the Polish Presidential Bureau of International Policy, told RMF24 radio.

"When the scale exceeds the capacity for enculturation, problems arise. We need no such problems in Poland. I think we have already reached the limit and can’t accept more," Przydacz said. According to him, there are an estimated 1.5 million Ukrainian citizens currently living in the country, but only 26,000 have so far received Polish citizenship. According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, as of April 2025, there are approximately 6.4 million Ukrainian refugees currently resident in Europe. Topping the list of countries hosting these refugees are Germany (1.24 million) and Russia (1.22 million), followed by Poland (nearly one million).

Poland is not the only European country to tighten its rules for accepting Ukrainian refugees, with Swiss, Austrian and Dutch authorities having previously made similar announcements.

In mid-September 2025, the Polish parliament passed a law, which makes it hard for foreigners, including Ukrainian refugees, to receive social benefits. According to this law, the Social Insurance Institution will run monthly checks to make sure that recipients actually reside in Poland and were economically active in the previous month. If a person is unemployed, his social payments will be suspended. Foreigners will also be required to earn at least 50 percent of the country’s minimum wage.

Meanwhile, the most economically and socially active members of Ukrainian society keep leaving the country. In an interview with RBC-Ukraine, Minister of Youth and Sports, Matvey Bedny, said that more than 1.7 million young people had left the country since 2022. He acknowledged that many of them had relocated to study, but were afraid to return, fearing they would end up at the front.

According to the head of Ukraine's Migration Policy Office, Vasyl Voskoboinyk, an estimated 90 percent of young people are unlikely to return to the country. He also clarified that approximately 1.5 million Ukrainian children have migrated in search for quality education and better earning opportunities. Ella Libanova, Director of the Institute of Demography and Social Research, believes that by 2033, Ukraine’s population could reach a maximum of 35 million, and only a fraction of those who left will be able to return. This forecast is complemented by UN data, according to which, since the end of February 2022, approximately 6.8 million people have left Ukraine, resulting in the depopulation of some regions.

The exodus of young people from the country is compounded by an equally serious problem in the Armed Forces. According to the newspaper Ukrainska Pravda, citing data from the country's Prosecutor General's Office, between January 2022 and September 2025, 235,646 criminal cases were opened for unauthorized absence from military service, and 53,954 for desertion.

In January, Olga Reshetilova, the parliamentary Commissioner for the Protection of Military Personnel's Rights, told The Guardian about the acute shortage of military personnel in Ukraine, including due to desertion. The military ombudsman cited fatigue, a desire to see their families, mental health issues, and conflicts with command as reasons for desertion.

General mobilization and martial law were declared in Ukraine on February 24, 2022, and have since been extended several times. Because dodging conscription carries a criminal penalty of up to five years in prison, Ukrainian citizens who have left the country are reluctant to get back and are making every effort to stay in their host countries. Meanwhile, Zelensky, the leader of the Kyiv regime, has been repeatedly invited to the negotiating table, but has used multiple pretexts to reject all these offers.

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