German Justice Minister Marko Buschmann said that Germany will not force Ukrainian men to serve in the Armed Forces.
This is reported by DW.
"We will not force people against their will to draft or do military service. We are trying to get more people from Ukraine to start working and not live on [social benefits]," said the minister.
This is how he reacted to the words of the Minister of Defense of Ukraine Rustem Umerov in an interview with Bild. The publication wrote that the Ministry of Defense plans to conscript Ukrainian men between the ages of 25 and 60 for military service from abroad — they will be "asked" to appear at the conscription points of the Armed Forces, otherwise sanctions will be "applied" to them.
In a comment to "Babel", the head of the press and information department of the Ministry of Defense, Hilarion Pavlyuk, said that Bild shifted the emphasis and the minister generally spoke to journalists about recruiting and the need to inform Ukrainians abroad. Pavlyuk noted that there are no discussions on the mechanisms of conscription into the ranks of the Armed Forces from abroad on the agenda.
However, the question of the mobilization of Ukrainians from abroad began to be raised in the public sphere.
Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to the head of the Presidentʼs Office, supported this idea on Channel 24.
He said that this is the right idea and there should be consultations with the governments of other countries on this issue. According to him, the General Staff, the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs should deal with this discussion in the future.
"While I am not ready to say how these negotiations will proceed. However, the Secretary of Defense probably sees this set of tools that will allow us to consult with the governments of other countries, to give the opportunity to our guys who are abroad to make appropriate decisions for themselves: whether they will go to the call, or, accordingly, will lose certain opportunities people who temporarily left Ukraine for the territories of the countries where they are. These are ideas," said Podolyak.