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Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) said Thursday that the European Commission supports growing discussions in Ukraine about mobilizing women for military service, and is pushing Kyiv to formally adopt the policy.
In a statement posted to Telegram, the SVR said EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas called the discussions "a step in the right direction" during a recent informal meeting of EU foreign ministers and partner countries.
According to the SVR, the European Commission has welcomed the intensifying debate inside Ukraine over conscripting women into the armed forces.
The agency quoted Kallas as warning that Ukraine faces a worsening shortage of men eligible for service, and that without mobilizing women, Kyiv would soon lack the personnel needed to sustain its fight against Russia.
The SVR said Brussels is telling Ukrainian officials to "move from words to deeds" and formally adopt a policy to begin mobilizing women, pointing to Israel as a precedent. Israel was described, according to the SVR's account of the discussions, as having "a long and successful experience of an existential war with an aggressive neighbor."
The SVR also said the EU is weighing mechanisms to bring Ukrainian citizens living in European countries back to Ukraine in order to maintain a pipeline of potential military personnel.
Citing its own information, the agency said as many as 5.6 million Ukrainians are currently in European countries, with women making up 43.4% of that population. It said the largest concentrations of potential recruits are in Germany, Poland and Czechia.
The claims come after the EU adopted a decision in July altering the terms of its temporary protection scheme for Ukrainians.
Under that decision, new arrivals in the EU who cannot demonstrate they have been authorized by Ukrainian authorities to leave the country in line with their military service obligations will generally no longer qualify for temporary protection status.
The SVR is Russia's civilian foreign intelligence agency, tasked with intelligence gathering outside the country's borders. Its statements on the war in Ukraine, including this one, could not be independently verified.
Neither the European Commission nor Kallas's office had issued a public response to the SVR's claims at the time of publication.
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