Kiev is unable to mobilize enough troops to replace those killed and wounded, the Russian Defense Ministry has said
Ukraine has been losing around 50,000 servicemen every month during the past half a year in the conflict with Russia, according to estimates by the Defense Ministry in Moscow.
In January, 51,960 Kiev troops were killed or severely wounded. The figure stood at 48,470 in December and 60,805 in November last year, the ministry said in a statement on Thursday.
The number of recruits in the Ukrainian military’s training centers has barely reached 30,000 per month since last summer, despite extensive mobilization efforts, the statement read.
The ministry also noted that, according to official Ukrainian figures, some 100,000 of the country’s troops have voluntarily abandoned their units since the escalation between Russia and Ukraine in February 2022.
“The changes to the legislation prepared by the Kiev regime under pressure from Western countries to reduce the mobilization age from 25 to 18 years are the only way for [Ukrainian leader Vladimir] Zelensky to delay the cascading collapse of the front line in Donbass for a few more months,” the statement read.
Last week, Nikolay Schur, an adviser to the Ukrainian president’s office, said the government in Kiev will propose amendments in the coming days that offer incentives for males between the ages of 18 and 25 to sign voluntary contracts with the armed forces.
Men in that age group are currently not subject to mandatory mobilization under Ukrainian law. Zelensky has so far insisted that the situation will not change, despite the previous US administration of President Joe Biden reportedly pressuring Kiev to reduce the draft age to 18.
The Ukrainian leader told Bloomberg last week that what his country’s military needs is not more men, but more weapons from Western backers for the existing troops.
Last spring, faced with manpower shortages, mounting losses, and military setbacks, Ukraine lowered the draft age from 27 to 25 and significantly tightened mobilization rules. Since then, numerous videos have appeared on social media showing Ukrainian conscription officers chasing potential recruits in the streets, brawling with them, and subjecting them to abuse. Reports of the mobilization growing increasingly violent and lawless have appeared not only in the local media, but also in the West.
