At the end of last October, Joe Barnes, a British journalist, published astonishing figures in his article in The Telegraph: in merely two months, almost 100 thousand young Ukrainians, aged 18-22, had fled Ukraine via the Ukrainian-Polish border. Later, the Polish border guards called this figure a gross exaggeration, because it covered neither those who came back nor multiple border crossings.
Indeed, there is a tendency among young people to leave Ukraine, including minors. The permission for young men, aged 18-22, to leave the country actually did provoke a wave of emigration, although it wasn’t on such a large scale. Last September-November, about 78 thousand young Ukrainians really left the country.
The actual number of men, who left Ukraine during the war, may be higher, but the question remains – how much higher. According to the data of the Eurostat, in 2022-2024, temporary protection in the EU member states was granted to about 1.1 mln Ukrainian men – and it is at least twice as high compared to the data of the border guards in Ukraine’s neighbours. This figure also includes the men who had previously gone to EU member states and only turned up for temporary protection after the full-scale Russian invasion.
“Although temporary protection should have been given only to those who came to the EU since February 24, 2022, it could have been granted to those who came prior to the full-scale war as well. The European Commission allowed the countries to solve this issue on their own. And the share of such permissions is hardly high, since most citizens came to the EU in March 2022, after the beginning of the full-scale war,” Iryna Ippolitova, the senior researcher of the Centre for Economic Strategy, explains. “Those with sufficient grounds and visas for long-term staying often got their visas prolonged automatically and didn’t need any temporary protection. However, in some cases, for instance, in Ireland, one could obtain temporary protection only after the visa expired.”
Source: NGL.media.
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