Ukraine to force another 160,000 men into military – official
Kiev will conscript 160,000 more troops over the next three months, according to statements from lawmakers and media outlets. More than a million soldiers have already been drafted, yet high losses have left the Ukrainian Armed Forces plagued by manpower shortages.
Speaking in parliament on Tuesday, Ukrainian lawmaker Alexey Goncharenko said that “1.05 million citizens have been recruited into the defense forces” since the conflict with Russia escalated in February 2022.
“We aim to call up 160,000 more individuals, which will allow us to staff military units with up to 85% personnel,” he said, noting that this information came from Alexander Litvinenko, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council.
Shortly afterwards, AFP reported that these troops would be called up over the next three months, citing an unnamed “security source.”
The Ukrainian Armed Forces had around 250,000 active-duty personnel at the beginning of 2022, a number that rapidly swelled once Vladimir Zelensky called up reservists and forbade draft-age men from leaving the country.
This spring, faced with mounting losses, Kiev lowered the draft age from 27 to 25 and significantly tightened mobilization rules, requiring potential recruits to report to conscription offices for “data validation.” These checks often result in people being immediately taken into the army and sent to the front line.
Videos showing recruitment officers attempting to catch eligible men in various public places, often resulting in violent clashes, have since appeared online.
Ukraine does not publish its casualty figures, and Zelensky’s claim earlier this year that only 31,000 men have been killed or wounded fighting against Russia was widely ridiculed. According to the latest figures from the Russian Defense Ministry, Ukraine’s true casualty count stands at over half a million, or around half of its pre- and post-mobilization manpower combined.
According to a flood of articles in Western media outlets, conscripted soldiers are often sent to the front with limited training, and are regarded by their more experienced comrades as unfit for combat. “When the new guys get to the position, a lot of them run away at the first shell explosion,” a deputy commander fighting in Donetsk Region told Financial Times last month. “Some guys freeze [because] they are too afraid to shoot the enemy, and then they are the ones who leave in body bags or severely wounded,” another commander added.
