The U.S. deported 50 people to Ukraine this week, a Ukrainian border official said on Tuesday, in what appears to be the single largest such deportation from the U.S. since the country has been at war with Russia.
The flight landed near the Polish border in the early hours on Monday. Since Russia’s invasion in 2022, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has deported 105 Ukrainians in total, with 13 in the last quarter of 2024, according to the latest data available in ICE’s publicly available tracker.
The Trump administration originally wanted to send 80 people on the flight, according to Olha Stefanishyna, Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States. That original list also included at least one person that Ukraine had previously been unable to claim as a citizen of the country.
Nobody owes any state their life. The only people that do are the ones that decided they want to lead those states. Conscription is technically slavery.
Unless you are Russia, North Korea, China, or similarly aligned, it is in your interest that Ukrainian men be in Ukraine defending their country. If you are in Ukraine, it is in your interest that they be returned to fight. If you are on the front lines, you damn well have the expectation that they be made to join you on the front lines. It doesn’t matter what these men want. It matters what they will be made to do. And the pressure needs to be turned up to send them back to Ukraine to fight. Call it what you want but, in a just war, conscription is morally just, and pulling men back home to join in the defense of the county is morally just.