Recruitment for “Ukrainian Legion” begins in Poland

The first recruitment centre has opened in Poland for a planned “Ukrainian Legion” made up of Ukrainians living abroad. They will be trained and equipped by Poland then sent to help defend their homeland. Ukraine’s defence ministry says that almost 200 volunteers have already applied to join.

Its announcement on Thursday came shortly after Poland’s defence minister said earlier this week that his country has been ready to train the legion for over a month but that the Ukrainian side had not yet recruited enough candidates.

The new recruiting centre has been established at the Ukrainian consulate in Lublin, a city in eastern Poland around 90 kilometres from the border with Ukraine. However, applications can also be submitted online through a specially created website or at other Ukrainian embassies and consulates.

The Ukrainian defence ministry says that “during the first days” after it opened, the centre received 138 applications online with another 58 submitted via consular offices. The recruitment centre in Lublin will review these applications, contact candidates for preliminary interviews, and assess their eligibility.

Selected candidates, who must hold Ukrainian passports, are then invited to the Lublin centre for an interview with a commanding officer. If that is passed and once documents are verified, successful candidates undertake medical examinations.

If they then sign a contract, volunteers will undergo 35 days of training run by the Polish military, said Ukrainian deputy defence minister Ivan Havryliuk. “In the future, they may be sent to improve their skills at one of NATO’s European bases for a few more months,” he added.

Havryliuk says that Ukraine is providing uniforms and logistical support for the programme while Poland will supply weapons and other equipment.

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The idea to create a legion made up of Ukrainians living in Poland was formally announced in July, when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited Warsaw to sign a bilateral security agreement with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk.

Shortly afterwards, Poland’s foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski, said that “several thousand” Ukrainians in Poland “have already registered” to join the legion. That caused some surprise because no formal recruitment process had yet been launched.

Last month, Dziennik Gazeta Prawna, a leading Polish newspaper, reported, based on unnamed sources, that Sikorski had been “misled” by Ukraine about the allegedly high interest among Ukrainians to volunteer for the legion.

This week, Poland’s defence minister, Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, said that, while “the [initial] Ukrainian declarations were very high [and indicated] that there would be [enough volunteers] to form a brigade”, in actual fact “there are not that many willing people”.

The minister also noted that Poland has so far trained over 20,000 personnel from Ukraine’s armed forces, more than any other EU country.

Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Poland has been one of Ukraine’s closest allies, providing extensive military, humanitarian and diplomatic support, as well as being the primary destination for the millions of refugees who fled Russia’s invasion.

Main image credit: President of Ukraine/Flickr (under public domain)

Alicja Ptak

Alicja Ptak is senior editor at Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She previously worked for Reuters.