Ukraine’s new draft law unsettles country’s young

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy probably changed the fates of thousands of Ukrainian men when he signed a law lowering the draft age to 25 this month, more than two years after Russia began its full-scale invasion.

Ukrainian forces are struggling to hold back the larger Russian army, and desperately need their ranks replenished. Now many of the young men who remain in Ukraine worry about their future.

Reporters from The New York Times spoke to Ukrainian men who could be affected by the change.

› Yegor Khomchenko, the owner of a communal bakery in eastern Ukraine who turns 25 next month, said he had many friends who went to war.

But he said his wife, Amelia, had told him that she would “do everything possible to prevent me from being taken away.”

“I am worried, even a little scared,” Khomchenko said. “But everything will be as God intended.”

› Nestor Babskyi, 23, a physical therapist in western Ukraine, sees several Ukrainian soldiers a day who have been wounded and maimed by the war. He said he felt guilt about not serving and a sense of dread for what lay ahead.

“At first,” Babskyi said, “I was terrified at the thought of going to war, but now I am calm about it.”

The wounded soldiers “have played their role ... so I’m waiting for my time to come.” He added: “I realize that I will definitely be more useful there than here. This thought calms me down.”

› Oleksandr Manchenko, 26, a journalist from Kharkiv, who has covered the war, noted the tough calculation Zelenskyy probably faced in lowering the draft age.

“Young people are the future, no matter how trite it may sound,” Manchenko said.

“Perhaps he thought that Ukraine could do without mobilizing young people, but apparently the military situation does not allow us to have such a luxury,” he said.