How to deal with the demobilization of the population, in a country exhausted by war for more than two years? This is the question that divides the Ukrainians, while the army needs to be strengthened in the face of the Russian threat but is struggling to find volunteers.
In December, President Volodymyr Zelensky proposed mobilizing an additional “450,000 to 500,000 people” to confront the approximately 600,000 Russian soldiers deployed in Ukraine. But he added that he needed to hear “more arguments” to decide as the subject is sensitive, particularly after the failure of the major counter-offensive in the summer of 2023.
Ukrainian forces number around 850,000 men. Although they do not reveal the number of soldiers sent to the front or their losses, every Ukrainian has seen the military sectors of their country’s cemeteries grow. The latest American estimates published in August by the New York Times reported nearly 70,000 deaths and up to 120,000 injuries.
The patriotic momentum of the first months, when Ukrainians voluntarily went en masse to the front, is no longer there. More and more often, the media mention men who are recalcitrant to mobilization.
New sanctions for refractory parties
In this context, the government submitted a bill to Parliament at the end of December which notably plans to lower the age of mobilization from 27 to 25, in order to rejuvenate the profile of fighters. A previous law had already been adopted to this effect, but was never signed by Volodymyr Zelensky.
In addition, the bill simplifies enrollment procedures and introduces new sanctions for draft dodgers, such as restrictions on driving licenses and a ban on real estate transactions. The text, on the other hand, restricts service in time of war to 36 months, whereas it is currently unlimited.
However, punishment is not a solution, according to Ukrainian Human Rights Commissioner Dmytro Loubinets. “We cannot get to the stage where, by fighting Russia, we will turn into something similar to Russia where the laws no longer work and the Constitution is just a piece of paper,” he said. he declared on television.
Use of the draw?
Faced with criticism, several parliamentary officials and the presidency assured that this text would be debated and amended. On January 4, a parliamentary committee responsible for defense began examining the project behind closed doors.
On social networks, calls are increasingly being made to mobilize the children of the elite and certain proposals from political leaders are being denounced. A parliamentarian from the presidential party, Mariana Bezougla, put forward the idea of an exemption from mobilization in exchange for a large donation made to the budget.
“And those who have no money, let them die in the trenches and let their children become orphans?” protested a user on the MP’s Facebook page. “War is for the poor,” added another.
A former Minister of the Economy, Tymofiï Mylovanov, for his part recalled that the United States had resorted to drawing lots during the Vietnam War: “The State chooses a day and a month at random. People born these days are mobilized.” At the same time, voices are being raised to demand a demobilization of those who have been at the front for a long time. Others want measures to push Ukrainians abroad to return to fight.
On the Russian side, mobilized women protest near the Kremlin
On the other side of the border, voices against the mobilization of men are also being raised – those of the wives of Russians who are protesting to demand the return of their husbands who have gone to the front. On Saturday January 8, around fifteen of them symbolically placed flowers on the flame of the unknown soldier under the walls of the Kremlin.
The activism of mobilized women has been largely ignored by Russian state media, while the Kremlin is keen to display an image of unity around Vladimir Putin before his inevitable re-election in the March 2024 presidential election. According to Vladimir Putin , 244,000 mobilized troops are currently fighting in Ukraine out of a total force of 617,000 men.