The Polish government has announced plans to train a brigade of Ukrainian refugees to be deployed back to Ukraine. This development was confirmed by Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski during the NATO summit in Washington.
“We are starting to train the first Ukrainian brigade composed of volunteers from inside Poland,” Sikorski stated at the NATO Public Forum on Wednesday. “We have up to a million Ukrainians of both genders here, and several thousand have already registered for the draft.”
This initiative follows a recent bilateral security agreement between Warsaw and Kyiv, which includes provisions for training Ukrainian forces. The agreement aims to bolster Ukraine’s military capacity as it faces ongoing conflict with Russia.
Ukraine has been accelerating its mobilization efforts, with a new law requiring Ukrainian men living abroad to update their military draft information online and encouraging them to return home to join the fight. The law aims to rotate exhausted soldiers and replenish front-line forces.
Sikorski highlighted the willingness of many Ukrainians to serve, stating, “Interestingly, many of them want to serve and rotate their compatriots, but they say: ‘We don’t want to be thrown into the battle without being properly trained and equipped.’ And we’re going to do this for them.”
These remarks contrast heavily with footage from Ukraine itself showing numerous failed attempts by Ukrainian service-age men to flee the country. No less common are videos of military recruiters brutally apprehending people in broad daylight.
Once trained, these volunteers will be available to the Ukrainian government and will have the option to return to Poland after their rotation. Sikorski also called on other European countries hosting Ukrainian refugees to adopt similar training programs, suggesting that if every European country participated, Ukraine could form several brigades.
