Can you imagine that Irish immigration officers are right now checking the military papers of Ukrainians who are claiming protection in Ireland? They are refusing the right of protection for those women and men who are unable to provide proof of exemption from Zelensky’s conscription.
They are making them illegal after 90 days of visa-free stay and subject to deportation back to the war-torn country that they are fleeing? Can you imagine that practice being ignored by the human rights NGOs – and soft-left parties – in Ireland? And that it was openly announced and implemented without discussion?
Sounds absurd and unprecedented in the history of refugee policies? It is, however, the reality of 2026 Ireland.
This summer, the EU Council decided this, based on a European Commission proposal which brought the temporary protection of Ukrainians within the EU in line with the military needs of the Zelensky government. They had an eye on the EU’s need for manpower in their proxy war.
Hungarian top-rank politicians including PM are openly criticising this practice in other states and has refused to implement it in their own NATO-member country.
While Ireland should be opposing this clampdown on those fleeing conscription, “neutral” Ireland is embracing the measure. Jim O’Callaghan, Irish Minister for Justice, was one of the first to cheer the EU decision.
Why Exactly Now?
Because Trump effectively stopped any military aid to Kiev over a year ago, the continuation of the war and prevention of a peace settlement is now directly linked to the will of the EU to fuel the war and its maximalist territorial ambitions. Brussels’ party line is clear and unchangeable, even though more than a million people are now dead with no resolution in sight.
The EU elite’s position, represented in Ireland by FF/FG and with the support of the soft-left, still insists on the military defeat of Russia, and the restoration of the pre-2014 borders of Ukraine, by any means necessary.
Tens of thousands of Donbass residents participated in the armed 2014 Donbas rebellion, demanding federalisation and then independence, after the armed Maidan overthrew the government in Kiev.
Kiev considers the rebels as criminals, subject to punishment up to life imprisonment with property confiscation. Note that “correct” armed “democratic protestors” from Maidan were pardoned by amnesty straight after the 2014 violent government change, regardless of how many Ukrainian policemen they killed for the sake of forcing the country into Euro-Atlantic integration.
Moreover, large cohorts of the civilian population in uncontrolled Donbass are subject to criminal prosecution and property confiscation, just for keeping their jobs after the 2014 secession! The most vulnerable people are unable to leave the 12-year war zone, including teachers and public sector workers.
Despite all of this, EU funding of the war “until victory” remains determinedly in place. To satisfy expectations, Zelensky is running a devastating class-based conscription campaign, known in Ukraine as “busification”, whereby military recruiters forcibly round up anybody that looks like a man and put them in buses to take them off to the front. This is happening across Kiev-controlled cities.
One of my relatives, living in the Kiev-controlled part of Ukraine, after the 5th street kidnapping died from a heart attack that struck him in the military office. Despite his official disability, which made him ineligible for mobilisation, this did not stop them from kidnapping him repeatedly. They “busify” a person first, checking his documents only after imprisoning him in the military office as part of their daily “catch”.
Ukrainian military losses amount to hundreds of thousands. Over 200,000 have deserted and 2 million Ukrainians are wanted by the state for avoiding conscription, according to Ukrainian Defence Minister data. They are hiding from “legal responsibility”, both inside and outside the country. People often don’t leave their apartments over the years, being fed by female family members.
Democratic Realities
Ukraine is a country with a tremendously impoverished population, glaring inequalities and widespread corruption. These three key factors come together in the conscription process and define whether a Ukrainian citizen will live or die.
While Zelensky’s cronies, like notorious Mindich, are pocketing hundreds of millions of dollars and finding refuge in Israel, the minimum monthly salary in Ukraine is 168 euros.
Ukraine is divided between those who have an interest in the war continuing — the administrative, business and the far-right minority, linked to the West – and those that don’t, the working-class majority, who are subjected to busification and all manner of repression.
Is it the case that there is still some freedom in Ukraine which could be extended into Donbass? No. The Russian language, which is the de-facto language of half of Ukraine’s population, is legally banned from workplace and education use, which makes life for ordinary Ukrainians even harder.
Furthermore, post-Maidan legislation de facto criminalises left-wing activities. Young Trotskyist Bogdan Syrotiuk was recently sentenced to 15 years for writing anti-war articles for a Trotskyist website based in Western Europe.
One of the top presenters of state-controlled TV, Natalia Moseichuk, infamously said in 2024, addressing conscription critics: “The Security Service of Ukraine will knock on everyone’s door. It’s better not to say anything which harms the State”.
Class-Based Conscription
Kiev’s regime has already excluded HIV, hepatitis, diabetes and moderate visual impairment among many other chronic illnesses and disabilities as the basis for exemption from mobilization.
Despite busification running over the years in the streets, draft exceptions are widely available both legally and illegally, making the conscription a pure working-class extermination.
As Ukrainian sociologist Volodymyr Ishchenko has noted, the staff of 133 Western-funded NGOs have been granted exemptions. A top layer of “Professional Ukrainians” repeat pro-war mantras supposedly on behalf of the entire nation that echo the Western “Stand with Ukraine” stance.
Ukraine’s Ombudsman, Dmytro Lubinets, has recently acknowledged the widespread corruption in the busification system. He has estimated that bribes can be as much as $10,000 to secure release from a draft vehicle, $15,000 to secure release from a draft office, and $50,000–$70,000 for direct assistance in crossing the border illegally.
The official statistics reported in May show that, in 2026, 68,500 people have been detained trying to flee Ukraine since the 2022 border closures.
Working-class people trying to leave Ukraine, crossing the border on their own, face one of the most heavily guarded borders, equipped with an innovative system of barriers, thousands of hidden cameras, observation drones and thermal imagers — all paid for by EU taxpayers. Which raises the question of what non-lethal Irish military aid can mean in practice.
There are already documented cases of Ukrainians being killed by Ukrainian Border Guard gunfire during attempts to cross the border. A 24-year-old man was shot in June 2024, a 23-year-old man was shot in September 2025. There have been instances of draft officers being stabbed to death by men who refuse conscription.
Calls for the mobilization of women are now growing. Former Ukrainian Defence Minister Reznikov and Trump’s former special envoy to Ukraine, General Kellogg, have spoken in favour of this.
Ireland’s Role
The EU is funding enforced conscription. The EU is equipping Ukrainian border to not allow poor Ukrainians to leak. It is paying salaries to draft officers and border guards. The EU is hiding from its own populations – who are suffering long hospital waits – what their money is being spent on.
Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan says, “citizenship is a privilege, not a right”.
He forgot to add the same words on the new Irish government measure on Temporary Protection: protection for Ukrainians is a privilege, not a right.
That is exactly what the new measure means as there is no problem at all with obtaining “correct” military documents for a bribe in Zelensky’s Ukraine.
FF/FG is implementing new rules for people seeking Irish citizenship. Recently, O’Callaghan has confirmed that Ukrainians will not be able to use the time spent in Ireland under the Temporary Protection Directive as part of their right to citizenship: the new Citizenship bill proposes an 8 years requirement for naturalisation.
He said it “was never thought that persons who came here from Ukraine, if they were here for five years, that they would be entitled to receive Irish citizenship. That would undermine the whole purpose of temporary protection”.
Unfortunately, the many consequences of Euro-Atlantic expansion in Ukraine are not temporary, but permanent. Ukraine’s elite don’t need other passports – or if they need it, they can easily purchase it via official golden passport schemes, obtained through investing stolen money abroad. For working-class people, the passport of another country is a lifesaver, but nearly impossible to get.
Additionally, military documents are required by the Zelensky regime to renew passports in Ukrainian embassies abroad. Otherwise, people are advised to return to democracy with closed borders. So, if the EU supports the regime that is not giving Ukrainians their passports, why not give them any other passport instead of those they are unable to renew?
Moreover, why can the lowest-paid nationality in Ireland (according to CSO data), not even have their years of work and integration counted towards the new 8-year requirement? Why are people who have lost their homes treated by the Irish government as a temporary undesirable population?
- Abolish the shameful practice of checking military documents now. Make protection for Ukrainians a right, not a privilege.
- Oppose the exclusion of years spent by Ukrainians on Temporary Protection from countable residency for naturalisation.
- Stop self-censorship on the Ukrainian issue. It kills the Ukrainian working class.
