A Ukrainian army proposal to conscript up to 500,000 more civilians has produced mixed feelings in Kyiv, with many people saying more troops are needed to fight Russia but some suggesting it is pointless unless they get more weapons.
A Ukrainian army proposal to conscript up to 500,000 more civilians has produced mixed feelings in Kyiv, with many people saying more troops are needed to fight Russia but some suggesting it is pointless unless they get more weapons.
Even without weapons more people getting training will be a good thing: First, because then you already have training when weapons become available, at this time Ukraine should leave no training spot unfilled, second, to make it easier to rotate troops in and out from the front, third, well now you have fighting experience which will make you even more effective once weapons arrive.
Side note: This is the first time (to my knowledge) that younger people will be called, IIRC 27 and younger. Average age in the Ukrainian army in 2022 was somewhere between 30 and 35, now it’s 43 years, due to volunteers tending older as well as the army needing people who can fight, not people who they first have to teach basics, meaning they very much preferred people who already had served their draft time.
Also this isn’t one of those wars where old men talk about glory and young men die. Not on the Ukrainian side, that is.
Lots of Ukrainians escaping the draft as well
Low single-digit percentages is not a lot, all things considered, in particular, it’s more than low enough to be able to say, to each of them, “ok if you don’t want to fight you’re going to be a tank mechanic in the rear”: People who don’t want to fight are a liability on the front, anyway. There’s also plenty of people who first fled to the EU and then turned around and joined the fight once the situation stabilised, once it was clear that Russia couldn’t just take over the country.