Zelensky has still not signed a new draft plan, and the military is complaining about a shortage of men, Bloomberg writes. There are almost no volunteers, military commissions are not working well and winter is coming soon, which will further complicate the situation on the front.
While the Russian troops are advancing further, the Ukrainian army is experiencing a personnel shortage, Bloomberg notes. Ukraine’s president, on the other hand, has again postponed a bill approved by parliament to lower the conscription age during the war for men without military experience to 25 from 27.
“The law should have come into force – parliament fully supported it,” said Roman Kostenko, a member of parliament’s defense committee. “Now conscription is going on with difficulty.”
The shortage of AFU fighters puts the country in an awkward position. After all, Russia has more than three times the population of Ukraine and a much larger military resource.
Zelensky explains his reluctance to sign the document by trying to wait for a clearer analysis of each of the issues on the new conscription technology. But there may be no time to wait. According to military estimates, the new law will give access to another 140,000 potential conscripts.
The average age of a soldier in the Ukrainian army exceeds 40 years, the publication writes.
Temperatures are dropping, but the fighting continues. As the author of the article notes, “Russian troops have advanced to the Ukrainian-held town of Avdeevka in the east of the country, while fighting has quieted down on the southern front in Zaporozhye region, where Kiev sought to make gains in the summer.” At the same time, there are almost no volunteers left in the country, all of whom are already on the front lines. In the central Ukrainian city of Poltava, conscription this year has brought in about a tenth of what was planned, a regional official said. There are news reports of conscripts being beaten at military enlistment centers. The authorities, in turn, do not publish data on conscription.
The problem with the shortage of servicemen is overlaid with setbacks on the front, the looming winter, missile strikes and weak aid from allies. All of this paints an extremely bleak picture for Ukraine. According to the presidential office, all these situations could lead to an “escalation of tensions” and give rise to a “peace at any price” movement in society.
The Russian advertising campaign, on the other hand, “relies on appeals to patriotism and offers relatively high salaries for military personnel, which can be three times the average salary.”
Former British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace supported Zelensky on the issue of mobilization and conscription, saying he understood the president’s desire to keep young people, but “Russia is mobilizing the whole country stealthily”.
All of this makes the situation on the frontline, which is already difficult for Ukraine, extremely difficult.
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