Despite the fact that in May 2023, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed a law reducing the age limit for military registration from 27 to 25, some young men under the age of 25 were mobilised on a completely legal basis at the beginning of the full-scale invasion.
In particular, this applied to young men after graduating from a military department and being promoted to officer or having completed military service.
In addition, according to the law on mobilisation, there is another category of people who can be mobilised before the age of 25: those who are unfit for military service in peacetime but are limitedly fit in wartime.
“This has led to the fact that men under 25 who have not done military service or military training, but who were once recognised as partially fit, can be mobilised. As a result, there are situations when, after the documents are checked by the staff of the MCC and the JV, sick men under 25 are mobilised if they were previously declared partially fit. Although their healthy peers are not subject to mobilisation,” the Verkhovna Rada’s apparatus recently reported.
In order to resolve this conflict, the Verkhovna Rada registered draft law No. 11379-d on amendments to the law “On mobilisation training and mobilisation”. The Committee on National Security, Defence and Intelligence has already recommended that the Parliament adopt it as a basis and as a whole.
According to Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, MP, Secretary of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Ukraine’s Integration into the European Union, if MPs pass a law banning mobilisation under the age of 25, young servicemen (those mobilised earlier – ed.) should be demobilised.
“If such a law is adopted, young people who were drafted before the age of 25 and do not wish to continue serving in the Armed Forces should be demobilised,” Nalyvaichenko said.
According to him, these people should be replaced by conscripts who are trained in military centres.“Now there are enough people in military training centres who are constantly being mobilised. The only thing I stand for is full training, which should last at least 1.5 months, and preferably up to 3 months,” he said and stressed the need to increase the number of training grounds, as the number of mobilised people is constantly growing.
As MP Oleksiy Honcharenko noted earlier, this draft law was developed on the basis of his draft law No. 11379. According to him, the updated draft law prohibits the mobilisation of not only those of limited fitness aged 18 to 25, but also those who have not completed their military service or who do not have a military department.
The draft law also provides for the right to discharge for those who have been mobilised.
“Now we have to consider this document in the session hall. I will do everything to ensure that this happens as soon as the parliament convenes,” the MP said.
Despite this position of Ukrainian parliamentarians, Ukraine’s international partners – donors of military and economic aid – periodically raise the issue of lowering the mobilisation age for Ukrainian men. In their opinion, the age of 18 to 25 is the best and much more effective at the frontline in terms of physical and psychological qualities.
So far, these theses from Ukraine’s allies have not found support in the corridors of the Ukrainian government.
At the same time, Major General Kyrylo Budanov, head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine, at a private meeting at KSE, announced new calculations for warfare that take into account mobilised young men and women aged 18 and over.
“If we mobilise all people aged 18 and over, we will be able to wage war until 2033. If we lower the threshold to 16 years old (Russia also considered this option), then until 2044,” said the DIU chief.
Author – Aliona Kaplina