EU decided to stop granting asylum to conscripted Ukrainians from 2027
European Union countries have agreed to extend the temporary protection regime for Ukrainian refugees for another year — until March 4, 2028. This will provide "clarity and predictability for all those fleeing the war," according to a statement by the Council of the EU, writes The Moscow Times.
At the same time, the bloc countries "agreed that temporary protection should only be granted to those who have fulfilled their military obligations to Ukraine."
Refusal to grant temporary protection to conscripted Ukrainians will apply only to new applicants after March 4, 2027 — until then, current rules will apply.
To obtain such status in the EU, a person will need to confirm the fulfillment of their military obligations, the document states. For example, by presenting a passport with an exit stamp placed by Ukrainian authorities, confirming that the applicant left the country legally and, accordingly, fulfilled these obligations. Or by providing another document confirming exemption from them or their fulfillment.
After the Russian invasion in 2022, about 4.3 million Ukrainians who fled the war received temporary protection status in EU countries. However, since last year, there has been a sharp increase in the number of young men moving to Europe, after the Ukrainian government relaxed their exit rules in the summer of 2025, hoping that freedom of movement would help bring back those who had left earlier or managed to leave the country in recent years.
Only in the first three months after the rule change, more than 121,000 Ukrainian men arrived in Poland, many of them subsequently moved to Germany, the Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita noted. About 50,000 of them later applied for temporary protection. At the end of last year, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz even asked Volodymyr Zelenskyy to stop this flow.
As the EU Council noted, while preparing the current restrictions, governments of some countries expressed concern that "an increasing proportion of recent arrivals are men of conscription age." At the same time, the Armed Forces of Ukraine continue to face serious challenges in staffing the army. A significant part of the personnel still consists of those who went to defend the country against Russian aggression at the very beginning of the war.
Comments