Why Do Ukrainians Oppose Lowering The Conscription Age?

[C0RI0LANUS]

Last edited Sat Jan 18, 2025, 12:07 AM - Edit history (1)

Soldiers carry a coffin of Ukrainian soldier Andriy Kuzmenko, who was killed in the Russia-Ukraine war, during a farewell ceremony at the St. Michael's Monastery in Kyiv on 10 Jan. (Photo: AP)

The US, Kyiv's main military backer, has called on Ukraine to lower the conscription age from 25 to 18 as the country struggles to fend off advancing Russian forces amid a shortage of new recruits. In April, Ukraine reduced the mobilization age from 27 to 25. But in Nov 2024, the Biden administration pushed Ukraine to lower the draft age again to 18. On 12 Jan, President-elect Donald Trump’s designated national-security adviser Mike Waltz repeated the message.

That has led some Ukrainian families to send their sons overseas to avoid conscription.


Svitlana Pokalchuk has sent her two teenage sons abroad for their safety. (Photo: RFE/RL)

The Problem:

The 18-25 age group is the weakest of Ukraine’s working age demographics. A dramatic fall in the birth rate in the 1990s, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, continued into the 2000s amid ongoing economic hardship.

“Our lowest birth rate in history was in 2001,” says Oleksandr Hladun, deputy director at the Ukrainian Academy of Science’s Demography Institute. “This contingent is currently the smallest. And this means that in 25-30 years even fewer children will be born.”

Economic problems and the war took another toll on the Ukrainian population as thousands emigrated. Today 25% of Ukrainian high school students wish to continue their studies abroad.

This is why Ukraine is facing manpower shortages and its people are reluctant to lower the draft age. The leadership of much larger Russia doesn't care about how many of their young men die.


Ukrainian police conducted hundreds of raids nationwide to shut down routes used by military-aged men to flee the country to avoid military service. (Photo: dpsu.gov.ua)



As the US Navy once used press gangs to obtain sailors, Kyiv has been employing the same tactic searching for and detaining draft evaders of military age.




ICC-indicted war criminal Vladimir Putin depicted by a street artist in Sweden.



Full article here:

https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-russia-war-conscription/33275293.html

Sources:

https://www.kyivpost.com/post/30122

https://www.kyivpost.com/post/45211