Ukraine on Wednesday lowered the military conscription age from 27 to 25 in an effort to replenish its depleted ranks after more than two years of war following Russia’s full-scale invasion.
The new mobilization law came into force a day after Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed it. Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, passed it last year.
It was not immediately clear why Zelenskyy took so long to sign the measure into law. He didn’t make any public comment about it, and officials did not say how many new soldiers the country expected to gain or for which units.
Conscription has been a sensitive matter in Ukraine for many months amid a growing shortage of infantry on top of a severe ammunition shortfall that has handed Russia the battlefield initiative. Russia’s own problems with manpower and planning have so far prevented it from taking full advantage of its edge.
I completely disagree. Russia should receive nothing for what they have done.
Imagine this, Russia decides that Alaska is theirs even though it was sold to the U.S. in 1867. They invade and make it half way into the state. Should the U.S. have peace talks with Russia and say you can have half the state or keep fighting and push them completely out? I guessing most Americans would say F off Russia, get out of our country.
Russia leaving Ukraine is the only justifiable outcome from this invasion. If a child breaks his siblings toy maliciously, you don’t reward them for doing a bad thing. You punish that child for their actions. Putin is nothing more than a spoiled child, you shouldn’t reward him for his bad behavior.
I feel like the mistake many make is comparing war to school bullies and children breaking toys.
There’s a big difference, though. In a war, people die. And sometimes, it may actually be wiser to give something up to save people’s lives, and then regroup in a way to prevent that from ever happening again than to try and “punish” a country with great ability to cause a lot more damage.
By trying to “teach Putin a lesson”, we tend to ignore the fact that he’s not a particularly good pupil and he rules a major army that currently razes Ukraine to the ground.
The problem is that Russia has far more resources than Ukraine and they have an upper hand in this war. They do not wish to leave empty handed. As sad as it is, for peace to happen Ukraine is going to have to lose something.
Putin already said he doesn’t want peace when the opponent has a shortage of ammo so this discussion is irrelevant anyway.
I wish we did more for Ukraine, it’s deeply saddening to see the news :(