A senior official in the Biden administration told reporters on the 27th (local time) that the U.S. government wants to expand Ukraine’s military by lowering its conscription age from 25 to 18.
This senior official assessed, “Ukraine is currently unable to mobilize or train enough troops to make up for battlefield losses and keep up with Russia’s increased military capabilities.”
“What we need right now is manpower,” he said. “Russia is actually making steady progress in the east and is starting to push back the Ukrainian front in Kursk Oblast.”
According to the Associated Press, Sean Sabet, a spokesman for the White House National Security Council, said in a recent statement that the United States will continue to provide weapons to Ukraine until the end of the Biden administration’s term on January 20 next year, but pointed out that “the most urgent need is manpower.”
On the 27th, the British news agency Reuters, citing a German Ministry of Defense source, reported that Germany had also secretly requested Ukraine to lower its conscription age.
Recently, Ukraine’s troop shortage and morale problems are at a serious level.
The British Financial Times estimated on the 22nd that the total population of Ukrainian men aged 25 to 60 is about 11.1 million, of whom about 1.2 million have already gone to the front.
However, about 2.9 million people live in Russian-occupied territories, about 1.3 million have fled abroad, about 1.5 million have been deemed unfit for military service, and about 600,000 are scheduled to be mobilized.
The remaining approximately 3.7 million men are eligible for forcible mobilization, and 900,000 of them have not registered in the mobilization register.
College students must submit a certificate issued by their university to the military registration and enlistment office to receive exemption from mobilization. However, the Ukrainian parliament (Supreme Rada) recently passed a bill that allows university students over 30 years of age to be considered draft dodgers and mobilized.
As a result, 23,448 male students over the age of 30 were forcibly expelled.
The British Economist reported on the 25th that the conscription issue could become a disaster by the spring of 2025, citing an anonymous Ukrainian official, saying, “The Ukrainian army has barely completed two-thirds of its mobilization plan.”
He also said that “the quality of new recruits” is a problem, quoting the 65th Brigade battalion commander, “Men over the age of 50 often send in doctor’s notes saying they are too sick to serve. “Sometimes I feel like I’m in charge of a kindergarten rather than a combat unit.”
And one officer said 70% of Ukrainian forces were prepared to give up territory for negotiations.
Denis Petrakov, a Ukrainian military prisoner, admitted in an interview with Russia’s RIA Novosti on the 25th that he lost more than 80% of his troops during the two weeks of fighting in Pokrovsk, leaving only 15 men remaining.
In an interview with the U.S. Wall Street Journal on the 25th, Vyacheslav Khomenko, a platoon commander of the 21st Mechanized Brigade of the Ukrainian Army, said, “We are all exhausted,” and “More than 90% of the platoon members have neither the combat skills nor the will to fight.”
Yevgeny Ivlev, a Ukrainian soldier, said in an interview with Ukraine’s Kiev 24 on the 27th, “We must outnumber the enemy by at least three times. We have 600,000 to 700,000 Russian troops concentrated there. In other words, at least 1.8 million people must be mobilized,” he argued.
Meanwhile, in order to secure additional troops this year, Ukraine lowered the age for conscription from 27 or older to 25 or older and strengthened punishment for those who evade conscription.
However, the Ukrainian government is taking a negative stance on adjusting the conscription age to below 25.
“We are not ready to lower the mobilization age,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a speech to parliament last week.
Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister for European Integration, Ola Stefanyshina, said in an interview with the Financial Times, “Ukraine does not need to lower the conscription age,” and emphasized that U.S. military support is more important.
Attention is being paid to how the Ukrainian government will react to pressure from the West, including the United States and Germany, to lower the conscription age.
