Ukraine military draft age lowered to boost fighting force (original) (raw)

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has signed a bill to lower the minimum conscription age from 27 to 25 as the country’s forces, outnumbered and outgunned by Russia, have been forced on the defensive after a failed summer assault and with widespread fatigue at the front and in society at large.

The bill expands the number of civilians the army can mobilise into its ranks to fight under martial law, which has been in place since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, and has sparked heated debate. It had been on Zelenskiy’s table since it was approved by lawmakers in May 2023.

In the first weeks after the invasion, hundreds of thousands of ordinary Ukrainians volunteered to serve at the front in an explosion of patriotism that helped keep the country independent and fight off the initial attack.

More than two years later, however, many of those initial recruits are dead, wounded or simply exhausted, and the army needs new recruits to fill the ranks. By now, most of those who want to fight have already signed up, leaving the military to recruit among a much more reluctant pool of men.

Kyiv has also been battling a shortage of ammunition supplies as vital funding from the US remains blocked by Republicans in Congress.

Viral videos have shown men snatched from the street to be conscripted, and there have been numerous corruption scandals of officials taking bribes to provide exemption. In August, Zelenskiy fired every regional recruitment chief.

Zelenskiy said in December that his military had proposed mobilising up to 500,000 more Ukrainians into the armed forces.

It is unclear how many men will be affected by the new law.

Data on Ukraine’s male population, cited by the Financial Times, showed that of 11.1 million Ukrainian men aged between 25 and 60, only an estimated 3.7 million are eligible for mobilisation. The others are fighting, disabled, out of the country or considered critical workers.

Zelenskiy also separately signed a second bill requiring men who were given military waivers on disability grounds to undergo another medical assessment, another measure that could help the military draft more fighters.

Zelenskiy has warned that Russia may plan another offensive in the coming months, and Kyiv’s troops have been scaling up their efforts to build up strong defensive fortifications along a sprawling frontline.

“Lowering the mobilization age from 27 to 25 years of age will support the Ukrainian military’s ability to restore and reconstitute existing units and to create new units,” wrote the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a US thinktank, in its latest report on Wednesday.

But the ISW said that delays in the US military aid “may impact the speed at which Ukraine can restore degraded and stand up new units”.

“ISW continues to assess that western-provided materiel continues to be the greatest deciding factor for the Ukrainian military’s ability to restore and augment its combat power.”

The Russian military leadership continues to reject rumours that it plans its own mobilisation.

Vladimir Putin ordered a “partial mobilisation” of 300,000 reservists in September 2022, after a series of military defeats saw Russian forces routed from east Ukraine’s Kharkiv region and under increasing pressure in the southern Kherson region.

Since then, it has replenished its ranks by recruiting prisoners as well as luring tens of thousands of recruits from poorer Russian regions with the promise of high salaries.

At the end of 2023, Putin said that 486,000 new recruits had joined the army that year and that 1,500 a day were signing contracts. Russia’s defence ministry on Tuesday claimed that another 100,000 recruits had joined the army in 2024.