Ukraine resists lowering draft age to 18 despite US pressure

At that time, the Russian forces They had gone on the offensive along the front line and the Ukrainian military, exhausted after two years of almost uninterrupted service, saw less and less ammunition and new Western weapons arriving due to a blockade of the aid package by the Republicans in the United States Congress . This legislative change caused the outbreak of small protests against the recruitment, to which is added that at this point in the conflict, with difficulties on the battlefieldmany Ukrainians try to evade the call up even through bribery. This has led to the fact that, currently, The average age in the Army is over 40 years old.

That is why it is not surprising that now the United States Government is pressuring Ukraine to increase its Army and lower the age of conscription of 18 year oldsas revealed by a high-ranking official in Joe Biden’s Administration on condition of anonymity. The moment is, to say the least, delicate. Russia has the support of North Korean soldiers on the front and Ukraine, beyond having established positions in the Kursk region, continues to fail to take the initiative in the east.

Furthermore, the arrival of Donald Trump to the White House could lead to a decrease in aid to Ukrainian forces. Among other things because the president-elect has promised so, but also because he has appointed as special envoy for Ukraine Keith Kellogga retired general who has been in favor of force kyiv to negotiate with Moscow.

The Government does not want

Despite the pressure, the truth is that Zelensky has refused on several occasions to lower the enlistment age. Instead, the Ukrainian government continues to look for effective ways to recruit new soldiers from the population susceptible to mobilization and to motivate thousands of deserters to return. In fact, according to data from the General Staff of the Ukrainian Army, some 6,000 soldiers who had left their units without permission They returned to the ranks in November.

In fact, as the military commander of the East, Oleg Dombrovski, told the ZN.ua portal, Ukraine has enough potential soldiers and does not need to lower the recruitment age. “This can only be posed if the situation on the front deteriorates significantly“, he told the Ukrainian media.

In general, the Ukrainian government maintains that mobilizing more young people does not make sense, especially since right now modern weapons are scarce due to shipping delays from kyiv’s allies. Likewise, in the long term it would also further complicate a difficult demographic situation, marked by low birth rate and the massive population flows abroad due to the war, reports journalist Rostyslav Averchuk from the Efe agency.

“Despite all the problems, Ukraine has been recruiting between 10,000 and 30,000 soldiers a month,” military analyst Oleksí Mélnik, from the Razumkov study center in kyiv, told Efe. However, the expert acknowledges, a more systematic policy is needed to resolve the shortage of personnel on the front.

New incentives

It is true that there is no magic formula, but the country needs to be able to curb the number of desertions and at the same time secure more recruits. To achieve this, several incentives are being considered. “It is necessary to introduce fixed periods of military service,” he argued in a forum in Ukrinform Yevgen Diki, Army veteran and military analyst.

Along the same lines, Ménik suggests that men of mobilization age must also be convinced that Their families will be taken care of no matter what happens. Thus, Ukraine could emulate Russia and offer financial incentives as bonuses when signing the recruitment contract, according to military analyst Oleksandr Kovalenko. The problem is that, today, Ukraine lacks the resources to pay up to 30,000 euros to new soldiers, as the Kremlin does.

However, experts also believe that better access to housing or education in the future could also help attract more soldiers.