Chancellor Merz asks Zelenskiy not to let young people leave Ukraine: “Do their duty in their country”
Volodymyr Zelensky, the President of Ukraine, at a press conference with Friedrich Merz, the Federal Chancellor of Germany, in Berlin, May 28, 2025. PHOTO: Action Press / Shutterstock Editorial / Profimedia
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Thursday not to allow young men to leave Ukraine, after a recent decision by Kiev to authorize the exit of young people between the ages of 18 and 22 had the effect of a wave of Ukrainian refugees arriving in Germany, reports AFP, taken over by Agerpres.
According to a statement given by Merz in Berlin, after having a telephone conversation with Zelenski, the German chancellor asked the Ukrainian president “to see that, in particular, young Ukrainian men do not come in large numbers and more and more to Germany, but to do their duty in their country”.
According to the martial law applied in Ukraine with the launch of the Russian invasion in February 2022, men fit to serve in the army, between the ages of 22 and 60, are prohibited from leaving the country. The ban was applied until August this year to those between the ages of 18 and 22, and its lifting led to an increase in the number of young people who left Ukraine.
Martial law eased in Ukraine: 18-22-year-old men given permission to leave country
Those over the age of 25 can be mobilized, therefore some avoid going out of the house in order not to meet the patrols of military recruiters. In the case of those between the ages of 18 and 25, mandatory mobilization was not decreed, but those who volunteer can join the army.
In Ukraine, the first months of the war were marked by a patriotic elan, many volunteers joining the ranks of the Ukrainian army, but then Kiev was forced to rely on compulsory mobilization, an unpopular measure that led to numerous attempts to flee the country, to the corruption of those in charge, to desertions and forced recruitment actions.
