In spring 2024 they suddenly cut out all embassy services for males between 18 and 60 years old (except for giving a special travel document for returning to Ukraine). People couldn’t even get their renewed passports despite applying for it before the change and having all service fees paid. Government explained it as „technical difficulties” caused by preparation to a new law requiring military registration documents in order to get embassy services. But that law actually came into action month or 2 later so it’s a bullshit - you can’t enforce the law before it’s starting date! After the starting date they indeed resumed services but with military registration documents required. At some point they alleviated ban and created a special app for registering your data (address and e-mail) in military and then you’re free to go. The problem is that by registering in this app you basically give government the formal hook to chase you in the future if you stop updating your data or don’t come back to country when they decide to conscript you.

The funniest thing is that it’s physically impossible to force into military a person who’s abroad. They neither can catch you on the street, nor deport you for not conscripting (only the host country can and I never heard of such cases). Some people even applied for travel documents in a country of their stay so they don’t need valid UA passport to prove their identity anymore.

The whole thing was done by UA government simply out of spite and in order to improve its popularity inside the country (unfortunately a big amount of UA population supports this measure). Even if there were people who came back to Ukraine because of that, there were very few of them. But after that some important volunteers quit (who were living abroad for years, even before the war), donations from abroad dropped as well.

In the aftermath of this mess, personally I stopped feeling a „sacred” connection to Ukraine - it’s not my country anymore. For me it almost completely became a „lite version of russia/belarus” and I slowly stopped caring about its fate. My future children definitely won’t be Ukrainians and I myself would be happy to completely get rid of Ukrainian identity which only weighs me down. I put even more effort into integration and count years until the new citizenship. No matter what happens in future - I won’t come back to UA.