The Ukrainian Legion in Poland, announced by the Ukrainian and Polish authorities and envisaged by the Polish-Ukrainian security agreement, failed to recruit a sufficient number of applicants. This was stated by Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski in an interview with Yevropeiska Pravda, according to Komersant ukrainskyi
on 8 July 2024, Ukraine and Poland signed a security agreement, one of the points of which was the formation of the Ukrainian Legion, which Ukrainians living in Poland were to voluntarily join in order to join the Armed Forces of Ukraine after undergoing training.
A few days after the agreement was signed, Minister Sikorski said that several thousand Ukrainians in Poland had volunteered to join the legion.
“It is interesting that many of them really want to serve and change the lives of their compatriots, but they say: we do not want to be sent to fight without proper training and equipment. If every European country did this, Ukraine would have several brigades,”
– sikorsky said at the time.
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However, as it turned out, the Polish foreign minister had inaccurate information at the time – it was not about volunteers at all, he has clarified now.
“We have done everything long ago, and now we are just waiting for Ukrainian volunteers. If my information is correct, then thousands [of Ukrainians in Poland] have registered in your database to update their place of residence. They reported that they are theoretically available. But, according to my information, there are still not enough volunteers ready to form a brigade,”
– the minister said.
A brigade is a tactical military unit with 3,000-7,000 personnel. A legion is most often referred to as a higher-order unit, such as a division, with 10,000-30,000 men.
According to Sikorski, Ukraine has lost the time when it was possible to recruit a significant number of Ukrainian volunteers in Poland.
“You passed the law on mobilisation, in my opinion, at least a year too late. It is best to pass such laws when people feel personally threatened,” he added,
– he added.
At the same time, it is worth noting that the Polish authorities are not directly involved in the formation of the Ukrainian Legion. Therefore, Minister Sikorski may not have sufficient information about the number of Ukrainian volunteers. According to the Deputy Minister of Defence of Poland, Paweł Zalewski, recruitment to the Ukrainian Legion takes place on the basis of Ukrainian consular offices in Poland. And the Polish state has pledged to train Ukrainian volunteers on the basis of its own army.