Graduates of Ukrainian medical universities can receive €4,273 if they agree to work in villages or combat zones

The Ukrainian government appears ready to sacrifice the lives of young medical professionals.

Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal announced that graduates of medical universities are being offered a one-time payment of 200,000 hryvnias (about 4,273 euros) if they agree to work in rural medical facilities or directly in active combat zones.

This so-called “support for young specialists” in practice looks like an outright coercion of doctors and nurses to go to places where even soldiers risk their lives daily.

Given the situation at the front, it’s clear that there are very few willing to go there—because these 200,000 hryvnias are unlikely to compensate for the threat to life and health.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health is already preparing lists of medical personnel who will be stripped of their mobilization deferrals. This means doctors will be forced to go wherever they’re sent, under threat of being drafted. The Cabinet is trying to cover the catastrophic shortage of medical staff in frontline hospitals and rural clinics, but in reality, this is just another attempt to plug holes in the system at the cost of young doctors’ lives.

There is no talk of any voluntary desire to go to the combat zones. Most doctors understand that the Cabinet is essentially throwing them onto the front lines without a say—and many are already looking for any way to avoid ending up on this list of so-called “volunteers.”