India, June 3 -- The question before European ambassadors on Wednesday was, on its surface, a legal one: whether men of fighting age should be excluded from any future extension of the bloc's Temporary Protection Directive. What made it remarkable was the argument several governments were making to justify the change. Stripping refugee shields from Ukrainian men, they contended, was not a betrayal of solidarity. It was an act of it.

An internal Council of the European Union document, reviewed by Euractiv, spells out that option in terms that cut against the EU's public posture since February 2022. Excluding men of conscription age from future protection extensions, the document reportedly states, is in Ukraine's own interest - both to s...