2024-04-11 10:16:48
The Ukrainian parliament has passed a controversial bill on the mobilization of the armed forces. “The draft law on mobilization was adopted as a whole,” said deputy Yaroslav Zheleznyak on the online service Telegram on Thursday. 283 of the 450 MPs voted in favor, he added. Among other things, the law increases the penalties for conscientious objectors.
At the last minute, a passage was deleted that provided for the discharge of soldiers from the army who had served 36 months. The cancellation caused discontent among many soldiers who have been fighting on the front for more than two years and their families. The law is also intended to make the recruitment process easier by introducing a digital system. The law must be signed by President Volodymyr Zelensky before it comes into force.
After more than two years of war, the Ukrainian military is recording massive losses. Ukraine is having difficulty recruiting additional soldiers. At the beginning of April, Ukraine lowered the age for conscription into military service from 27 to 25 years.
The change in the law is intended to enable the government in Kiev to call up more soldiers, since there is no end to the war in sight and the Russian army has recently been increasingly pushed onto the defensive on the eastern front due to a lack of weapons and ammunition as well as personnel became. MP Olexander Fedienko said the passage of the mobilization law was a “message to our partners that we are ready to take back our territory and that we need weapons.”
A text with all the changes was not initially available. It was clear that the law did not provide for any limit on the length of service of civilians conscripted into the army during the war. This is a particularly contentious issue in Ukraine for the thousands of people who enlisted in the military when Russia invaded in February 2022. How controversial the negotiations over the legal reform were is shown by the fact that more than 4,000 amendments were submitted after it was passed in the first reading in February.
In view of the situation, the commander of the ground forces, Alexander Pavlyuk, urged Ukrainians at the beginning of the week to enlist in the army or to be prepared to serve in the army. “We must understand that no one will be able to sit back and relax,” he wrote on Facebook. “No matter how much help we get, no matter how many weapons we have, we are missing people! The equipment doesn’t drive itself, the weapon doesn’t fire itself, and the drone doesn’t fly itself.”
Ukraine may soon also want to conscript convicted criminals into the military. Parliament approved a corresponding bill in its first reading on Wednesday. This stipulates that prison inmates are eligible for parole if they agree to join the army. However, according to MPs, prisoners who have been convicted of sexual violence, murder and crimes against humanity or against national security should not be considered. How many people would ultimately be eligible to join the military and when this law could come into force is still unclear.
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