While the US-EU establishment continues to tell us Ukraine must be defended against Russia at all costs, legions of the country’s young men are abandoning the country — dreading the prospect of being thrown into the West’s proxy-war meat-grinder, and convinced their best future lies somewhere else. Last week, the Telegraph reported that nearly 100,000 Ukrainian men between 18 and 22 have left in the past two months — a force well larger than the 70,000 soldiers in then entire UK army.  

The surge springs from Ukraine’s recent relaxation of wartime restrictions on foreign travel by the country’s men. Effective August 22, men between 18 and 22 are now allowed to leave Ukraine. Many are choosing to do something much more ambitious than a weekend getaway, instead applying for asylum or other forms of protection in various European countries, where they’re taking up residence and looking for employment. According to German TV outlet DW, one of their top choices is increasingly Germany, where the weekly pace of arrivals by young men has grown from a relative trickle of 100 into a torrent of 1,000. 

These 18- to 22-year-olds are not draft-dodgers. In a sharp difference with the philosophy of the United States and other countries, the Ukrainian military is barred from drafting men below age 25; voluntary service starts at 18. However, the specter of conscription is a decision factor for many of those leaving the country. Under current rules, once a man turns 23, he can’t leave the country. “At 23 or 24, you’re in a sort of buffer zone,” Serhiy, a 22-year-old originally from the Donbas, told DW. “You can’t just go abroad, but you’re not hiding either; meanwhile, army call-up is getting closer and closer.”

Some men in the 18- to 22-year-old set fear the draft age will be lowered. That’s already happened once during the war with Russia: In April 2024, the minimum draft age was lowered from 27 to the current 25. The Biden administration urged Ukraine to lower it to 18, and other US officials have since pushed the country to lower the conscription age below 25, including hawks like Sen. Lindsey Graham and UN ambassador Mike Waltz. 

That prospect weighed heavily on Viktor, an 18-year-old who left a town south of Kiev in August and arrived in Berlin with his girlfriend. “I read reports that said the age of conscription might be lowered,” he told DW. “In our country all sorts of laws could be passed, including that you can be conscripted as young as 18.”

🇺🇦 Conscription in Ukraine.

Imagine telling your family you are going out for an evening walk, just to never return. Kidnapped and sent to dіе because Zelensky says so. pic.twitter.com/DbGdBUlOmu

— Spetsnaℤ 007 🇷🇺 (@Alex_Oloyede2) October 20, 2025

Twenty-year-old Maksym, who arrived in Berlin from Kiev with the initial goal of finding an electrical engineering or other apprenticeship, was positively exuberant as he spoke to DW on Alexanderplatz. “I’m completely overwhelmed!” he said. “I’m incredibly happy, because I clearly see that this is my ticket to the future.”

While Maksym is jubilant, there’s growing agitation over the influx of young Ukrainian men into Germany and other countries. Many politicians point to the disconnect between European countries sacrificing their own economies to impede Russia’s conquest of the Donbas — while taking on waves of Ukrainian refugees who absorb benefits and compete with locals for jobs — and the spectacle of military-age men abandoning Ukraine in huge numbers.

“The EU and Berlin must influence Ukraine to change the relaxed exit rules,” Markus Söder, Prime Minister of the German state of Bavaria, said last month. “It won’t help anyone if more and more young men from Ukraine come to Germany instead of defending their homeland.” Similarly, last week Poland’s Confederation party said, “Poland cannot continue to be a refuge for thousands of men who should be defending their own country, while burdening Polish taxpayers with the costs of their desertion.”