Ukraine proposes lowering age for military conscription from 27 to 25
Al Jazeera
Draft bill proposed as military looks for hundreds of thousands of new recruits in its fight to eject Russia.
Ukraine has proposed reducing the age of those who can be mobilised into the armed forces from 27 to 25 after the military said it needed as many as 500,000 more soldiers in its now 22-month-long war against Russia.
The age reduction was in the text of a draft law posted on the website of Ukraine’s parliament late on Monday.
The text detailed which Ukrainian citizens would be subject to enrolment for military registration of conscripts and said it would apply to those “who have reached the age of 25”.
An explanatory note signed by Defence Minister Rustem Umerov summarised key provisions of the draft law, saying they included the “change of conscription age from 27 to 25 years”.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy revealed earlier this month that the military had proposed mobilising between 450,000 and 500,000 more Ukrainians but that it was a “highly sensitive” issue that the military and government would discuss before deciding whether to send the proposal to parliament.
