Ukraine aims to replenish depleted military
Mobilization bill would expand front-line forces
KYIV — After months of political wrangling, Ukraine’s parliament passed a new law Thursday that aims to replenish the nation’s exhausted and depleted fighting forces, which are struggling to hold back relentless Russian assaults that are expected to intensify into the summer.
The mobilization law is a carefully crafted attempt to expand the size of Ukraine’s military while avoiding a public backlash. It offers a mix of financial incentives for those taking up arms, including a special bonus for soldiers at the front and death benefits for the families of those who fall in battle. It also imposes new penalties on Ukrainian men trying to evade service, such as suspending the driver’s licenses of those who fail to register.
But perhaps as important as what was included in the legislation is what was cut — namely a timeline for when conscripts will be demobilized, something that both soldiers and their families had been demanding after more than two years of a brutal war.
The original version of the bill submitted in February included provisions that would have capped mandatory service at 36 months, but they were removed at the request of the military.
The urgent need for fresh troops has been evident since last fall, as Russia stepped up attacks and started grinding a slow and bloody path forward in eastern Ukraine, including by seizing the city of Avdiivka this year.
“Ukraine needs this bill and it needed it much earlier,” Volodymyr Yermolenko, the editor-inchief of Ukraine World, an independent news outlet, said in an interview. “It is good we have it now because it will create a more stable and firm legal framework for mobilization.”
It will take a month for the new measures come into force, and Yermolenko said it will take more time yet to assess their impact. But, he added, it was “a step in the right direction.”
Petro Burkovsky, the head of the Democratic Initiatives Foundation, a Ukrainian think tank, said he thought the bill had come late and did not address deeper issues facing Ukraine, such as “a detachment between the political leadership and society.”
But, ultimately, he said, President Volodymyr Zelensky would be judged by the results, and there was only one result that mattered: whether the war against Russia was won or lost.
Zelensky had been exceedingly cautious in dealing with the politically fraught topic of mobilization, which has the potential to undermine the social cohesion that has played a critical role in Ukraine’s ability to wage war against a far larger and better-armed enemy.
Zelensky, who was visiting Lithuania on Thursday, had urged lawmakers to act this week and is widely expected to sign the new legislation soon.
However, the last time Ukraine’s parliament passed controversial legislation related to mobilization — lowering the draft eligibility age to 25 from 27 last May — Zelensky waited nearly a year before signing it into law this month.
The bill passed Thursday, which addressed mobilization issues more broadly, was overwhelmingly approved. It was supported by 283 lawmakers, and 49 lawmakers from various opposition parties abstained, according to the official roll call.
The bill’s passage comes at a precarious moment for Ukraine, which is struggling to hold the front lines because of ammunition shortages and to protect millions of civilians in the rear because of dwindling air defenses.
Lawmakers passed the bill only hours after the country was rocked by yet another large-scale bombardment of more than 80 missiles and drones, many aimed at Ukraine’s already battered energy infrastructure, officials said. It was the third largescale assault aimed at the grid since March 22, part of a renewed Russian campaign to collapse the Ukrainian power network.
“If Russia is allowed to continue, if Russian missiles and Shahed drones strike not only Ukraine but also the determination of our partners, it will be a global endorsement of terror,” Zelensky said in a statement after the attacks.
There were no reported deaths from the overnight strikes, but Ukrainian officials say hundreds of civilians have been killed and injured in recent weeks as Russia stepped up bombardments.