Ukraine’s military wants to mobilise up to 500,000 more troops in its conflict with Russia—at a cost of around 500 billion hryvnias ($13.4 billion)—Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told a news conference on Tuesday, December 19th.
As the military campaign against Russia approaches the two-year mark next February, the stalled Ukrainian counteroffensive is in dire need of new recruits to defeat a much larger Russian army. There are currently a million Ukrainians in uniform, and the country is struggling to replace the exhausted soldiers who have spent almost two years at the front. Battlefield losses are a state secret, but according to U.S. estimates tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers have died.
Zelensky said he needs a detailed plan of how the army intends to conduct the mobilisation, adding that the military also has to address whether current frontline troops would be rotated or allowed home on leave.
The mobilisation plan was formulated on the instructions of Zelensky himself. Meanwhile, the parliament is also debating proposals on expanding the categories of citizens eligible to be called up. One such proposal has been the conscription of women.
“Women who fled war should come home, to join the army,” said Mariana Bezuhla, a member of parliament for President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Servant of the People party. She added:
There are those, who are eligible for service and cannot leave the country, meanwhile others are seeking romantic adventures in Europe. Where is the equality of rights?!
The government is also planning to clamp down on those who enroll in higher education to avoid compulsory registration for military service.
At present, only Ukrainian men aged between 27 and 60 can be mobilised by draft officers. Men aged between 18 and 26 can’t be drafted, though they can enlist voluntarily.
There is a growing number of news reports of draft officers stopping men in the street, in shopping centres, gyms, and even in swimming pools, with videos circulating of armed recruiting officers threatening men and sometimes dragging them away.
According to The Economist, Ukraine recently sent a platoon of twenty soldiers to fight in Donbas, with some men taken from their villages without notice. Reportedly, one older man didn’t even have time to collect his false teeth before deployment. After just one week in the trenches, three had been killed and another three seriously wounded.
Authorities reacted to public outrage by stating that draft papers are handed out in accordance with the law. “We believe, men of military age, who deliberately evade military service, train in gyms or have fun in recreational centres, should not be more privileged than the soldiers of the Armed Forces, who provide protection and fight against the Russian invaders under very difficult circumstances,” they said.
“Mobilisation must be effective, and the defence of the homeland is the constitutional duty of every citizen,” said Ilyarion Pavluk, Ministry of Defence spokesman.
