Independent MP Leo Kunnas and Estonian Nationalists and Conservatives' delegate Jaak Valge recently wrote to Interior Minister Igor Taro (Eesti 200) to point out that among 34,000 Ukrainian citizens granted temporary protection in Estonia (as of May 31 of this year), 7,500 are men of mobilization age (18–60) years of age, Delfi reports.

In the same time frame, 5,700 Ukrainian citizens, including 4,500 men between the ages of 18 and 60, have been granted international protection.

"Over the past 10 months, the number of Ukrainian women and children holding temporary or international protection has decreased by 634, while the number of men of mobilization age under protection has increased by 1,009," Kunnas and Valge noted. "Thus, the already disproportionately high share of men of mobilization age among all Ukrainian citizens who have received protection has grown even further over the past ten months and now stands at 30 percent."

Minister Taro, addressing the MPs' question during Riigikogu Question Time on Monday, said that gender or age have no bearing on international protection decisions, adding that "no one is protecting anyone from Ukraine," and that instead Estonia is protecting Ukrainian citizens from Russia.

Asked whether Estonia has taken steps to facilitate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's remark delivered during a visit to Estonia last year — that mobilization-aged men should be in Ukraine and helping it fight the war — Taro said that while the Ministry of the Interior has raised the issue with the Ukrainian ambassador on multiple occasions, the embassy has not requested any help with the matter.

Taro told Delfi that although, according to Kunnas and Valge, Estonia has several times more Ukrainian men of mobilization age than Latvia or Lithuania, their number is still not significant. "We can't say it's unreasonably large," he said.

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