" It's done ! The law on mobilization is adopted. 283 MPs voted for it,” MP Oleksiï Goncharenko said on Telegram. Ukraine, faced with a shortage of volunteer soldiers, had been working on this text for many months, punctuated by controversy after more than two years of war against Russia. The Ukrainian parliament adopted on Thursday, according to deputies, this bill toughening mobilization in the army, a controversial text because it does not provide for a demobilization period for soldiers.
Since Wednesday, Ukrainian deputies had begun to examine the text at second reading, causing a new outcry due to a change of heart on the return of soldiers who have been fighting for a long time.
The enlistment of new people has sparked debate in Ukraine for more than a year, while the army lacks manpower and ammunition in the face of Russian forces on the offensive on several fronts.
This bill, which should facilitate recruitment, was passed by the Ukrainian Parliament at first reading in February after the failure of a first version prepared by the government last year. But this second version has since also been heavily amended.
According to several MPs, one of the key clauses was notably removed: the demobilization of soldiers who have been fighting for more than 36 months, a measure which was nevertheless eagerly awaited in a country exhausted by more than two years of Russian invasion. Several financial incentives for soldiers were also removed, she said.
“Giving the condemned the opportunity to fight”
Instead, the government will be tasked with drafting another bill on “improving military personnel rotation mechanisms.” The deputies also voted on Wednesday at first reading a bill making it possible to mobilize prisoners. “We must give those convicted the opportunity to fight,” the co-author of the text, Oleksiï Goncharenko, defended on Telegram, while promising that those convicted of murder or rape would not be enlisted.
The decision to remove the demobilization clause immediately caused controversy, especially since the current enlistment system is considered by many Ukrainians to be unfair, inefficient and often corrupt. Serguiï Gnezdilov, a civil rights activist currently in the army, denounced on Facebook a “cruel twist” which took the soldiers by surprise.
For the spokesperson for the Ministry of Defense, Dmytro Lazoutkin, who recognized that the troops were "exhausted", such a decision was made necessary by "the impossibility of weakening the defense forces" at a time when "the Russian offensive continues literally on all fronts. According to him, the government must submit a new bill on rotations in the army within eight months.
Russia wants to recruit 400,000 soldiers per year
At the beginning of April, President Volodymyr Zelensky had already approved the lowering of the age from 27 to 25 years at which one can be mobilized to expand the pool of potential recruits. He claimed in December 2023 that the army had offered to enlist up to 500,000 additional people, a number since revised downward by the new commander-in-chief of the army, Oleksandr Syrsky.
For their part, Russian authorities are seeking to recruit around 400,000 contract soldiers in 2024 to support their forces in Ukraine according to British intelligence “Russia continues to recruit soldiers every spring and autumn; spring conscription began on April 1, 2024. Approximately 150,000 soldiers aged 18 to 30 are expected to be enlisted this spring, which matches previously enlisted numbers,” the intelligence said. These conscripts will serve for 12 months in all branches of the Russian military forces but are not currently employed in combat missions in Ukraine.