JRL NEWSWATCH: “Ukraine needs 500,000 military recruits. Can it raise them?” – Financial Times
“Ahead of a new mobilisation law, exhausted soldiers on the frontline complain of low morale”
“… A new [Ukrainian] mobilisation law — due to be put to a parliamentary vote on March 31 — seeks to update the country’s legal framework ahead of a probable recruitment wave this year in which up to 500,000 people could be drafted. Some 330,000 troops are estimated to be currently deployed on the battlefield.
The draft will be aimed at modernising recruitment and training as well as replacing those troops who have been there from the first month of war, the Ukrainian defence ministry [said[ …. The new law seeks to lower the mobilisation age by two years, to 25, and oblige men to register via an online portal. …”
A controversial proposal to exempt men considered critical to the economy sparked an outcry causing it to be separated out from the current proposal, to be introduced separately through a new piece of legislation or by government decree.