Ukrainians should return from Germany and make weapons – Zelensky aide

Ukrainian citizens who have fled to Germany since the start of the conflict with Russia should return home and work in weapons factories, an aide to Vladimir Zelensky has told an audience in Berlin.

The presence in Germany of hundreds of thousands Ukrainians, most of whom remain unemployed despite the government’s attempts to integrate them into the national economy, is a hot-button issue for the EU’s largest nation.

Kiev intends to return its citizens through an initiative that is due to be launched next year by the newly created National Unity Ministry, according to Zelensky’s advisor on strategic issues, Aleksandr Kamyshin.

The Berlin-backed program will “bring Ukrainians back into the defense industry of Ukraine,” he said on Wednesday during a panel discussion at the seventh German-Ukrainian business forum. The program will be a priority for the department’s chief, Aleksey Chernishov, Kamyshin added.

In his speech at the same forum, Chancellor Olaf Scholz urged German businesses to invest in the Ukrainian economy, claiming that the money would be going to “a future EU member”.

Last week, the German leader acknowledged the government’s failure to enrol into the workforce as many Ukrainians as intended. Only about 30% of Ukrainian refugees have jobs, while some 720,000 are receiving ‘Burgergeld’, a social benefit normally reserved for German citizens, according to German media.

The Ukrainian government’s push to repatriate citizens is being held back by the threat of mandatory conscription, which fighting-age men will face if they go back home. As many as 1.2 million draft dodgers have fled from the country illegally, Ukrainian lawmaker Anna Skorokhod said in an interview last week, citing internal government statistics.

The Zelensky government has been touting Western funding of Ukrainian arms production as a viable alternative to ramping up the defense industry in Europe. Ukrainian officials claim that the country has a large untapped capacity to make more weapons. Kiev’s arms makers can produce as much as $30 billion worth of military hardware a year, Kamyshin said at the event in Berlin.

According to Moscow, no amount of donated weapons can alter the outcome of the Ukraine conflict, as it is an existential issue for Russia. However, the West intends to prolong the hostilities “to the last Ukrainian,” Russian officials have said.