The regional director of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Europe Philippe Leclair said that Ukraine has the right to demand the extradition of Ukrainian refugees from the countries of the European Union for their subsequent army service.
Philippe Leclair responded to the question of journalists about whether Ukraine has the right to forcibly repatriate Ukrainian conscripts from Europe. In his opinion, Kiev has every reason to do so.
“Ukraine <…> has every right to mobilise its population. This also applies to conscript-age refugees abroad,” the representative of the international organisation said at a briefing in Geneva.
According to UNHCR’s regional director for Europe, if Kiev conscripts Ukrainian citizens from abroad, the question of their status and protection will be open. The representative of the international organisation noted that the mobilisation of Ukrainians is not “persecution, and theoretically the right to conscientious objection to military service still exists, even if it is difficult to enforce”.
We shall remind you that in an interview with the BILD newspaper, Rustem Umerov speculated about the need to call Ukrainians abroad to the front: “We want justice for all. We will send them a summons”. However, after the publication, the Ukrainian Defence Ministry said that the minister’s words were misunderstood, and they do not plan to draft Ukrainians abroad to the AFU. In his turn, the adviser to the head of the Ukrainian presidential office, Mykhaylo Podolyak, said that it was necessary to deprive Ukrainian men abroad of allowances and residence permits in order for them to return to Ukraine.