Ukraine promotes military mobilization to solve "hot potato"

Ukrainian lawmakers are rushing to advance a controversial bill to recruit more troops amid concerns that manpower shortages are hurting the country’s forces on the front lines, Bloomberg reported on April 10.

Ukraine’s draft law tightens registration rules, narrows exemptions from military service and introduces some penalties in a bid to shore up frontline troops. Ukrainian forces are struggling with shortages of ammunition and manpower as they defend against a renewed Russian offensive.

The draft law, which has been plagued by some 4,000 amendments, was approved by the Ukrainian parliament ’s Defense and Security Committee (Verkhovna Rada) on April 10. The bill will be debated in the Eastern European country’s parliament this week. Some lawmakers have also said that the bill could be approved as early as April 12.

Sensitive issue

“We are talking to the parliament to pass the bill in the coming days,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview with a group of Ukrainian television stations on April 6.

Mr Zelensky's party has a majority in the Rada, so the bill on military mobilization, after being amended to appease public opposition, is almost certain to pass.

Oleksii Honcharenko, a member of the opposition, also said the draft would still require compromise on some provisions.

Last week, Ukraine's president signed into law a law lowering the military age from 27 to 25 after it sat on his desk for nearly a year.

Some Ukrainians fear that lowering the minimum conscription age to 25, which would mean more young people dropping out of the workforce, could backfire by further damaging Ukraine's already war-ravaged economy .

Ukrainian soldiers prepare to fire a Caesar 8x8 155mm wheeled self-propelled howitzer on the front line in southern Ukraine, February 14, 2024. Photo: Getty Images

Faced with a public exhausted by the fighting, Mr. Zelensky has sought a more comprehensive mobilization plan, including an outline for troop rotations and limits on the length of time one can perform military service.

The military’s push to recruit more soldiers has become a source of contention between Mr Zelensky and his generals, and was part of the reason for the Ukrainian president’s decision in February to remove the popular general Valeriy Zaluzhnyi from his position as commander-in-chief.

Until recently, troop mobilization was a sensitive issue, likened to a “hot potato” being thrown back and forth between the Government and the Army of the Eastern European country. And the Army maintained pressure to request additional manpower as Russian forces took advantage of Ukraine’s ammunition shortage to gain the initiative on the battlefield.

The situation is more serious

“No matter how much help we get, how much weapons we get – we still lack people,” Ukrainian ground forces commander Oleksandr Pavliuk said in a Facebook post on April 8.

After capturing the town of Avdiivka in Donbass earlier this year, the Russian Army has been firing along the frontline and making small advances. Moscow's troops are looking to capture key strategic positions, such as the town of Chasiv Yar, located west of Bakhmut in the Donetsk region.

Meanwhile, Washington’s $60 billion aid package for Kiev continues to be blocked by some Republican lawmakers, with US House Speaker Mike Johnson yet to bring it up for a vote as he struggles to safely bypass the hardliners in his own ranks.

Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, General Oleksandr Syrskyi, attends a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and newly appointed top military commanders in Kiev, Ukraine, February 10, 2024. Photo: CNN

The delay in aid has made the situation on the ground worse. At the request of Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi, Ukrainian lawmakers removed a provision in the draft that mandated 36 months of military service.

The bill also includes registration update requirements for those who are likely to be drafted, as well as penalties such as driver's license revocation for those who evade military service.

Other proposals, such as freezing bank accounts, were dropped from the draft bill amid public outcry. A separate bill would have introduced tougher penalties for those who evade military service.

Officials in Kiev have been reluctant to provide any estimates of how many troops will be deployed, but Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal told Bloomberg last month that the initial request for as many as 500,000 troops was unnecessary.

The law on military mobilization, if passed, would take at least a month from its promulgation to come into effect, Mr. Zelensky said .

Minh Duc (According to Bloomberg, AP)

Source: https://www.nguoiduatin.vn/ukrai-xuc-tien-huy-dong-quan-giai-quyet-cu-khoai-lang-nong-bong-tay-a658460.html