Kiev wants to persuade Ukrainians of fighting age living in other European countries to join the armed forces by creating a new unit, the “Ukrainian League”, which will be based and trained in Poland, the Ministry of Defense announced today.

Kiev, whose army has been depleted by heavy casualties after two and a half years of war, is scrambling to replenish its ranks. Ukrainian authorities have already stepped up recruitment inside the country, largely thanks to a new law adopted in May.

Now they want to recruit some of the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians living in Europe, mainly in Poland and Germany, some of whom have left the country illegally precisely to avoid conscription.

“Ukrainians who are in Poland and other European Union countries will be able to join the Ukrainian defense by signing contracts with the armed forces,” Minister Rustem Umerov said on social media.

The creation of this unit is foreseen in a bilateral security agreement between Ukraine and Poland signed on Monday in Warsaw by President Volodymyr Zelensky and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk.

It is a “special volunteer unit that will be trained on Polish soil” and “will be equipped with the best weapons” of the West before being deployed to the Ukrainian front, Umerov said.

“We invite all Ukrainians who are in Europe to join the Ukrainian League,” he said, without giving details of the number of men Kiev hopes to recruit.