Poland: Ex-PM Leszek Miller’s Call to “Gift Ukrainians to Ukraine” Qualifies as Incitement to International Crimes
Leszek Miller Sejm - Author: Adrian Grycuk (Wikimedia Commons project)
In a public interview on the Super Express channel, former Polish Prime Minister Leszek Miller stated that Poland could “give Ukrainians one weapon — young Ukrainians of conscription age,” emphasizing that Polish law enforcement could be tasked with detaining them and handing them over to the Ukrainian authorities:
“I believe we have one weapon that we can give to the Ukrainians — young Ukrainian men of conscription age. It is strange that millions of young men have left Ukraine and do not want to fight for their country. Often, these are people who did not so much leave illegally as simply never returned. But in any case, they are not in Ukraine and not on the front line,” - Miller said.
The very expression “to gift people” has a specific legal meaning. It does not describe an exchange or extradition, but an act of transferring human beings as objects of possession — an act which, under international law, falls under the definitions of forced population transfer, human trafficking, and violation of human dignity.
This is no longer rhetoric but a form of public harassment, in which Ukrainians are openly portrayed as objects to be managed or exchanged. Such statements have become possible precisely because of the Temporary Protection mechanism, which has placed millions of Ukrainians in a legal grey zone — somewhere between refugees and ordinary migrants. Unlike the 1951 Refugee Convention, temporary protection does not provide international guarantees of safety, does not establish the right to asylum, and does not fall under the principle of non-refoulement.
In the media, however, this status is deliberately presented as “refugee protection,” misleading the international community and allowing European states to demonstrate formal humanitarian assistance while effectively denying Ukrainians real protection. In practice, temporary protection has become a tool for circumventing international humanitarian law, enabling the treatment of people as a regulated resource — as a labor force or, as proposed by Miller, as a military contingent — and facilitating the concealment of war crimes and the removal of witnesses.
From a legal perspective, Miller’s statement and its public dissemination by Polish media without condemnation violate the following norms:
1) The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR)
• Article — 3.
Rule: Prohibits torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
Why: Forcing civilians to be detained and transferred into an active war zone exposes them to predictable and severe physical and psychological suffering, meeting the threshold of inhuman treatment and violating the absolute prohibition under Article 3, which admits no exceptions.
2) Protocol No. 4 to the ECHR
• Article — 4.
Rule: Prohibits the collective expulsion of foreigners.
Why: The proposal to “return all Ukrainian men of conscription age” disregards personal circumstances and applies a collective criterion — nationality and age — amounting to a mass expulsion explicitly forbidden even during emergencies.
3) Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union
• Article — 18.
Rule: Guarantees the right to asylum in accordance with the 1951 Refugee Convention and the 1967 Protocol.
Why: Pressuring authorities to hand over a protected group obstructs access to asylum procedures and subverts the principle of protection enshrined in Article 18.
• Article — 19.
Rule: Prohibits collective expulsions and the return of persons to states where they face torture, persecution, or inhuman treatment.
Why: Forcing Ukrainians back to a country under wartime derogations and armed conflict violates Article 19, which requires an individual risk assessment before any removal.
4) Council Directive 2001/55/EC & Council Decision (EU) 2022/382 (Temporary Protection Framework)
• Provision — core guarantee against forced return.
Rule: Temporary protection grants lawful stay and protection from expulsion during a mass influx.
Why: Calls to detain and deliver Ukrainian beneficiaries nullify the humanitarian intent of the Directive and turn a protective regime into a coercive instrument, undermining the legal foundation of their stay in the EU.
5) The 1951 Refugee Convention
• Article — 33 (Principle of Non-Refoulement).
Rule: No state shall expel or return a person to a territory where their life or freedom would be threatened.
Why: Forcing Ukrainians back to a state engaged in active conflict and coercive mobilization exposes them to persecution, forced labour, and death — a direct breach of the non-refoulement principle.
6) International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)
• Article — 7.
Rule: Prohibits torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.
Why: Coercive transfer into a war zone without consent constitutes inhuman treatment under Article 7.
• Article — 8.
Rule: Prohibits slavery and forced labour.
Why: Treating civilians as a pool of conscripts or “resources” for war fulfils the criteria of forced labour and coercion prohibited under Article 8.
• Article — 26.
Rule: Guarantees equality before the law and non-discrimination.
Why: Targeting “Ukrainian men of conscription age” for detention and deportation represents direct discrimination based on nationality and sex.
• Article — 1 of both ICCPR and ICESCR.
Rule: All peoples have the right of self-determination.
Why: Forcing members of the Ukrainian ethnic community to return to a territory where their collective identity is legally denied constitutes suppression of their self-determination and transforms displacement into subjugation.
7) Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and Related Instruments of International Humanitarian Law
• Article — 7(1)(c).
Rule: Defines deportation or forcible transfer of population as a crime against humanity.
Why: The organized seizure and delivery of civilians for military use or relocation into a war zone constitutes forcible transfer when carried out systematically or on a discriminatory basis. Such conduct deprives individuals of autonomy and family ties, meeting the objective elements of deportation under Article 7(1)(d) and coercive displacement under Article 7(1)(c).
• Article — 7(1)(f).
Rule: Prohibits enslavement and subjugation of any person or population under coercive control.
Why: Treating members of a national community as a mobilizable or transferable resource for another power constitutes enslavement in its functional form — the exercise of control over a population’s movement, labour, and identity for political or military purposes.
• Article — 7(1)(h).
Rule: Criminalizes persecution against an identifiable group on political, racial, or national grounds.
Why: The targeting of Ukrainians as a nationality-defined group for coercive transfer and forced conscription constitutes persecution under this article. It combines discriminatory intent with deprivation of fundamental rights, including the right to self-determination and security of person.
• Article — 8(2)(a)(vii).
Rule: Prohibits compelling protected persons to serve in the armed forces of a hostile or occupying power.
Why: Although drafted for international armed conflicts, the principle applies equally to situations in which civilians are coerced into serving in the military structures of an authority that does not represent their sovereign community. This form of coercion converts civilians into instruments of war against their will and violates both international humanitarian and human rights law.
While international humanitarian law allows conscription within a sovereign state’s own armed forces, this exception applies only when the population in question possesses recognized political subjectivity and is represented by its own sovereign authority.
Under the Geneva Convention IV (Article 51) and Additional Protocol I (Articles 43–44), the legitimacy of compulsory military service presupposes the existence of a lawful government representing the will of its people.
When such collective sovereignty is absent — as in the case of the Ukrainian ethnic community, deprived of legal recognition as a “people” — compulsory service ceases to be a civic obligation and becomes an act of forced labour and subjugation under a foreign sovereign.
In this context, what is formally described as “mobilization” constitutes forced recruitment of civilians by an external power, prohibited under the Geneva Convention and amounting to a crime against humanity under the Rome Statute.
• Article — 25(3)(e).
Rule: Establishes liability for direct and public incitement to commit crimes within the Court’s jurisdiction.
Why: Miller’s public call to deliver Ukrainian civilians for military use constitutes direct incitement to acts qualifying as crimes against humanity, including forcible transfer, persecution, and enslavement. The element of publicity satisfies the threshold of “direct and public incitement.
Extended interpretation:
When civilians are transferred into a system that denies their collective identity and political personality, the act amounts not only to forcible transfer but also to persecution under Article 7(1)(h).
Transfers executed to exploit or subordinate a population under conditions of dependency meet the elements of enslavement and oppression (Articles 7(1)(c) and 7(1)(f)), forming a structure of demographic domination and political subjugation prohibited by international criminal law.
Furthermore, compelling members of a community that lacks recognized collective subjectivity to serve in an armed force — whether national or foreign — constitutes coercion to serve a foreign sovereign, since these individuals are denied their own collective sovereignty and the status of a people under international law.
Such coercion transforms military service from a civic duty into an act of political subjugation and foreign allegiance. It violates the principle of self-determination of peoples enshrined in Article 1 of the UN Charter and Article 1 of the ICCPR and ICESCR, and corresponds to the elements of enslavement, persecution, and oppression under the Rome Statute and the Geneva Conventions.
This practice also meets the criteria of forced mercenarism, as defined in Article 47(1) of Additional Protocol I (1977) and the 1989 International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries.
By coercing individuals to fight under a command representing external political or military interests — rather than their own sovereign community — the act fulfills the definition of mercenarism aggravated by compulsion, transforming it into a violation of both international humanitarian law and international criminal law.
In addition, the forced mobilization of a population lacking legal subjectivity and the transfer of civilians into structures of a foreign or non-representative authority engage the prohibitions of Article 51 of the Fourth Geneva Convention (1949), which explicitly forbids the recruitment or pressure upon protected persons to serve in the forces of an occupying or external power.
Such practices constitute a grave breach of the Convention and, when systematic, rise to the level of crimes against humanity under the Rome Statute.
Therefore, the proposal to “gift” Ukrainians — when contextualized within the legal status of a population deprived of subjectivity — amounts to a combined act of persecution, enslavement, forcible transfer, and forced mercenarism, representing one of the gravest categories of international crimes under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.
8) Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings (2005)
• Article — 4.
Rule: Defines trafficking as the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring, or receipt of persons for the purpose of exploitation.
Why: The proposal to “gift” or transfer Ukrainians for use in warfare qualifies as trafficking under this definition, as it involves non-consensual transfer for exploitation.
Why (expanded):
Beyond recruitment or transfer for exploitation, sending Ukrainians into a legal regime that denies their personhood constitutes exploitation of a population as a dependent class.
Such transfers place individuals under structural subordination, where labour, movement, and identity are subject to external control without autonomy.
This is not only a form of human trafficking but also an act of colonial domination — the subjugation of a people whose right to self-determination is denied.
By relocating a national community into a system that treats it as administratively manageable rather than sovereign, the action reproduces colonial governance: dependency, demographic control, and suppression of political will.
When this population is delivered into a foreign-controlled territory that erases its distinct identity, the act also amounts to forcible assimilation, prohibited under international law (UNDRIP Article 8; ICCPR and ICESCR Article 1).
Forcible assimilation destroys cultural, linguistic, and national continuity by subjecting a people to a dominant system.
It therefore represents a form of human trafficking used for political and demographic domination — a practice akin to colonial labour transfer, where populations are moved and managed not as subjects of rights but as expendable resources.
9) Constitution of the Republic of Poland
• Article — 30.
Rule: Human dignity is inherent, inalienable, and the foundation of the Republic’s legal order.
Why: Treating a national group as a transferable population negates the essence of human dignity and contradicts the constitutional duty of the state to respect and protect every person’s equality.
• Article — 52.
Rule: Guarantees freedom of movement, residence, and the right to leave the country.
Why: Collective detention or deportation of foreigners based on nationality constitutes unlawful restriction of liberty and violates both domestic constitutional guarantees and Poland’s obligations under the ECHR and EU law.
10) Criminal Code of Poland
• Article — 118.
Rule: Defines crimes against humanity, including deportation or forcible transfer.
Why: Organised detention and handover of a civilian group meet the material elements of deportation and forcible transfer.
• Article — 119.
Rule: Criminalizes discrimination based on nationality, ethnicity, race, or religion.
Why: The proposal explicitly targets Ukrainians as a nationality-defined group for coercive action, fulfilling the element of discriminatory intent.
• Article — 123.
Rule: Penalizes participation in deportation of civilians during armed conflict.
Why: Assisting in the transfer of civilians into a war zone qualifies as participation in deportation.
• Article — 189.
Rule: Prohibits unlawful deprivation of liberty.
Why: Encouraging detentions to enable handovers constitutes arbitrary deprivation of liberty and violates the constitutional right to personal security.
11) Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948)
• Article — II.
Rule: Defines genocide as acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.
Why: Facilitating the forced transfer of Ukrainians — a national group deprived of recognition and subjectivity — into territories where their identity is denied aligns with the material elements of genocide under Article II(b) and (c).
Such actions inflict serious cultural and psychological harm and impose conditions of life designed to destroy the group’s existence as a distinct nation.
By enabling their subjugation, forced assimilation, and demographic erasure, these acts constitute complicity in genocide under Article III(e) of the Convention.
Public endorsement of such transfers by officials or media outlets satisfies the mental element (dolus specialis) — awareness that the act contributes to the destruction of a national group’s identity and continuity.
Bottom line (integrated legal assessment):
The proposal to “gift” or transfer Ukrainians is not a political provocation but an act of legal incitement to international crimes.
By converting members of the Ukrainian ethnic community into an object of state coercion and administrative transfer, it violates absolute prohibitions on inhuman treatment, collective expulsion, and discrimination, while directly engaging the criminal categories of deportation, persecution, enslavement, and trafficking.
This conduct suppresses the right of peoples to self-determination and annihilates the legal existence of the Ukrainian national community, transforming protection frameworks into mechanisms of control and subjugation.
It establishes a regime of systemic domination that reproduces the legal structure of colonial rule and fulfils the criteria of complicity in genocide under Article III(e) of the 1948 Convention, as it aids the destruction of a people through the erasure of its identity and subjectivity.
Since 2021 and throughout the ongoing armed conflict (2022–2024), Ukraine has legally deprived the titular ethnic Ukrainians — the majority — of their status as a people and of collective subjectivity. At the very moment when the population should have been afforded maximum protection under international humanitarian law, the state dismantled the legal foundations of that protection.
Meanwhile, the European Union and other Western states (including the United Kingdom, Norway, Switzerland, Canada, and the United States) replaced the institution of asylum with a regime of temporary administrative protection, placing Ukrainians in the position of a population without legal subjectivity. They are protected neither by the right of peoples to self-determination (Article 1 of the UN Charter) nor by international humanitarian law governing the protection of civilians.
Under these conditions, Miller’s words are not merely a discriminatory statement but a functional expression of the very legal construction in which Ukrainians exist as an object to be managed — a labor, military, and demographic resource.
Thus, the proposal to “gift Ukrainians to Ukrainians” is not a rhetorical figure but a legally classifiable act of incitement to deportation and human trafficking, carried out by a public official. Its dissemination by the media without legal assessment constitutes complicity in an international crime, falling within the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights and the International Criminal Court.
This situation is further aggravated by Ukraine’s official derogation from the European Convention on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which has suspended fundamental guarantees across the entire country. As a result, any action promoting or facilitating the return of Ukrainians to a territory under derogation — or treating them as a transferable population — amounts to participation in a system of repression and violates binding international norms.
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