KYIV, Ukraine (AP) – Ukraine on Wednesday lowered the age of draft eligibility for men from 27 to 25, reflecting more than two years of conscription tensions. war with russia It is necessary to strengthen the military and inject new conscripts into the exhausted corps.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy signed three bills aimed at strengthening the country's armed forces, which are trying to maintain the front lines of the beleaguered battle. usurped Ukraine's position and storage of weapons and ammunition.
Oksana Zabolotna, an analyst at the Unified Action Center, a government watchdog in Kyiv, said the new law would abolish some draft exemptions and create an online register for recruits, adding to the number of about 50,000 people in the military. additional soldiers may be added, he said.
That would be 1 in 10 500,000 additional troops President Zelenskiy said he wanted to mobilize the military in December. But after signing a security agreement with Finnish President Alexander Stubb in Kiev on Wednesday, President Zelenskiy said the Ukrainian government had requested an audit. newly appointed commander in chief He judged the figure of 500,000 to be incorrect, partly because existing troops could be sent from the rear to the front. He did not say why that option had not been considered before.
President Zelensky said he was not prepared to say publicly how many new conscripts Ukraine's military would need.
“I can say that Russia is preparing to mobilize another 300,000 military personnel on June 1,” President Zelensky told reporters.
According to statistics from the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, the country's military had approximately 800,000 soldiers as of October. This does not include the National Guard or other troops. A total of 1 million Ukrainians are in uniform, about 300,000 of whom serve on the front lines.
Conscription has become a sensitive issue as Ukraine faces growing shortages of infantry and ammunition, giving Russia more control on the battlefield. Russia's own human resources and planning problems have so far prevented it from making full use of its advantages.
Associated Press correspondent Charles de Ledesma reports that Ukraine has lowered its draft age in the fight against Russia.
According to military analysts, the average age of soldiers on both sides is over 40 years old. Some Ukrainians fear that lowering the minimum military draft age to 25 and taking more young people out of the workforce could backfire, further harming the war-torn economy. are doing. That is why the conscription age was not simply set at 18. But the problem has become more pressing as Kiev anticipates a new offensive by Russian forces this spring or summer.
Russia's military said Wednesday that a recent surge in enlistments was due to public anger over last month's military actions. Moscow concert hall attack More than 140 people died. Russia's Defense Ministry said about 16,000 people had signed it in the past 10 days, but the claim could not be independently verified.
Officials from the Islamic State extremist group claimed responsibility for the concert hall attack, but despite strong denials, the Kremlin has offered no evidence and maintains that Ukraine and Western countries were involved.
It took Mr. Zelensky almost a year to sign the bill lowering the draft age, perhaps reflecting how unpopular such a move would be.
Antonina Pilyuhina, a 49-year-old Kiev mother of a 21-year-old son, said she was opposed to lowering the draft age.
“I have only one son and I am a single mother,” Piliuhina said. “Did I spend all these years raising him to have someone take him away and kill him just for fun? We don't need this.”
Mykola Petrovsky, 28, said she loves Ukraine but doesn't think it's right to send people who don't want it to fight.
“I'm not going to go somewhere tomorrow and kill people,” Petrovsky said. “It's not because I'm not a patriot of my country, but because I'm not ready to kill people. I wasn't born for this. You can't take that away.”
But Metelya, a 37-year-old soldier who used a nickname instead of his real name due to safety concerns, said he was fully in favor of lowering the draft age. He said new troops are needed as Russia has been fighting since 2014, when it illegally annexed Crimea from Ukraine.
“If an 18-year-old boy was ready to fight alongside us when we fought for Kiev, why can't a 25-year-old adult man do the same?” he asked. .
Zabolotna, the government monitoring analyst, said he estimates that only about 50,000 men between the ages of 25 and 27 will be added to its ranks, even though there are about 500,000 men between the ages of 25 and 27.
“Some of them are not suitable for military service, some are retired, some are in the reserves, some have the right to deferment,” she said.
The introduction of the law shows that Ukraine is facing the reality that it is in a war of attrition and competition for resources, said the director of the Ukraine Forum and deputy director of Chatham House's Russia and Eurasia programme. Director Olysia Rutsevich said. London tanks.
Zelenskyy had hoped the war would end relatively quickly, she said. But he realizes that Putin is “not just fighting Ukraine.” His main enemy is the United States and its presence in Eastern Europe. ”
The first enthusiasm to fight the Kremlin forces weakenedHowever, public support for the war remains high.
Ukraine currently bans men under 60 from traveling abroad. Many Ukrainian men avoid conscription by hiding in their homes or trying to bribe their way out of the fighting. Commanders say they do not have enough troops to launch an attack and barely enough to hold positions during an intensifying Russian offensive.
Russia's population is more than three times that of Ukraine, and President Vladimir Putin has said: Willingness to push men to the forefront If we don't have enough volunteers.
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Associated Press writers Ilya Novikov and Srdjan Nedeljković contributed to this report.
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