Warsaw will not be involved in recruiting for the first Ukrainian Legion, and volunteers will be able to return to Poland after completing their service, Pawel Zalewski, Poland's deputy defense minister, told Polskie Radio on July 19.
The legion was officially announced as part of the security agreement signed by President Volodymyr Zelensky and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk on July 8, which laid out further developments in political, economic, and military cooperation between Ukraine and Poland.
Unlike other specific legions in the Ukrainian Armed Forces, such as the Georgian Legion, the Freedom of Russia Legion, and the Belarusian Pahonia Regiment, the legion will be made up of Ukrainians.
Recruitment for the Ukrainian Legion will be conducted by Ukrainian consular offices, Zalewski said. The volunteers will be conscripted under Ukraine's legislation and trained in Poland by the country's military, he added.
"Responsibilities, in terms of equipment, will be clearly divided between what the Polish side offers and what the Ukrainian side guarantees," Zalewski said.
"Several thousand" people have registered to participate in the legion as of July 11, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski.
He said that Warsaw considered Ukraine's request for military instructors to be sent to Ukraine, but "came to the conclusion that it would be both safer and more effective to train a Ukrainian unit formed of Ukrainians in Poland."
Sikorski said in April that forcibly returning men of draft age to Ukraine is "ethically ambiguous" and Ukraine, rather than Poland, will have to "take the initiative" in the process.
Kateryna Denisova
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