A proposal has been put forward in Poland to send unemployed Ukrainians to fight

Andrzej Śliwka, an MP for the Polish opposition party Law and Justice, has proposed deporting Ukrainian men of conscription age who do not have official employment from Poland. According to him, such men should return to Ukraine and defend their country. This was reported by the Polish media outlet Polsat News.

The initiative was put forward against the backdrop of ongoing discussions in Poland regarding the status of Ukrainian citizens and their participation in the labour market.

Slivka stated that the Polish authorities should identify Ukrainian men who are in the country without formal employment and verify the grounds for their stay. According to the MP, this primarily concerns men of conscription age who could return to Ukraine and help defend it.

“That’s a brigade, at the very least”

During the broadcast, Maciej Duszczyk, Poland’s Deputy Minister of the Interior and Administration, described the idea of deporting Ukrainian men without formal employment as“terribly unreliable”. He said that the number of Ukrainians in Poland who are not officially employed stands at around 5 per cent.

Shlivka, for his part, stated that even such a proportion represents a significant number of people.

“At the very least, a brigade, if not a unit of people who can fight for their country,” said the Polish MP.

The presenter also asked Shlivka who exactly should monitor the employment of Ukrainians and deal with their possible deportation. In response, the MP stated that Polish government agencies exist for this purpose. In his view, it is necessary to know who is in the country illegally or who is living in Poland but not officially employed.

Shlivka also linked his proposal to issues of Poland’s security. He stated that identifying such people is necessary because the Ukrainian army allegedly lacks military personnel.

This is not the first proposal of its kind

Shlivka’s idea is not the first initiative by Polish politicians concerning the possible deportation of Ukrainian men of conscription age. Previously, PiS MEP Tobiasz Bochenowski also proposed deporting Ukrainian men aged between 25 and 60 from Poland who are living in the country and are not officially employed.

Attitudes towards Ukrainians in Poland are changing

These new statements come against the backdrop of a noticeable shift in the attitude of a section of Polish society towards Ukrainian refugees. According to opinion polls conducted in July, the proportion of Poles who support taking in Ukrainian refugees has fallen significantly compared with the first months of the full-scale war. Whilst 94 per cent of those surveyed supported this stance at that time, the figure now stands at around 42 per cent.

At the same time, there has been a rise in reports of attacks on Ukrainians in Poland.