Nearly 100K Young Men Leave Ukraine in Two Months

Nearly 100,000 military-age men have reportedly fled Ukraine in the past two months after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy relaxed the rules on leaving the country.

Citing Poland’s border guard, The Telegraph reported that 99,000 Ukrainian men between the ages of 18 and 22 had crossed the frontier, which is the main route out of the country, since the end of August.

Regardless of their eligibility for the military draft, Ukrainian men ages 18 to 60 were blocked from leaving the country under martial law after Russia invaded in February 2022.

Three years into the conflict, Zelenskyy announced a new policy allowing Ukrainian men to travel outside the country before reaching the age of 23.

Complicating the situation, the Ukrainian leader signed a new law in April lowering the draft age for men from 27 to 25 in an effort to bolster the ranks on the front lines.

According to the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, between 60,000 and 100,000 Ukrainian troops are believed to have been killed since the war began.

Throughout much of 2025, Russia has reportedly sustained casualties of 1,000 men killed or injured each day on the battlefield.

While Zelenskyy had hoped that the easing of travel regulations would increase the number of volunteers for military service, the shift in conscription policy has instead led to more young Ukrainian men exiting the country to travel abroad at a time when tensions within Europe are running high over migration.

From January to the end of August, when the travel rule took effect, approximately 45,300 Ukrainian men between the ages of 18 and 22 entered Poland, according to The Telegraph's report. In the past two months, that number has jumped to 98,500, or 1,600 per day.

In Germany, the number of Ukrainian men ages 18 to 22 arriving every week reportedly climbed from just 19 to more than 1,000 by the middle of September, as Chancellor Friedrich Merz is attempting to tighten the country's immigration policies.

Bavarian news outlet BR24 reported that by October, the number of young Ukrainian men arriving in Germany each week had grown to between 1,400 and 1,800.

Jurgen Hardt, foreign policy spokesperson for the center-right Christian Democratic Union of Germany Party, told Politico that the party has "no interest in young Ukrainian men spending their time in Germany instead of defending their country."

"Ukraine makes its own decisions, but the recent change in the law has led to a trend of emigration that we must address," Hardt said.

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