KYIV — For nearly three years, Ukraine has resisted drafting men as young as 18, as is done by so many other wartime armies — a choice that has baffled some of Kyiv’s western allies but is a deeply sensitive issue at home.
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As Russia has continued gaining ground on the battlefield with high attrition-style combat, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is facing increased pressure to deploy more young people to the front lines. With future aid from Washington uncertain, U.S. officials have warned that Ukraine’s personnel shortage is perhaps more critical right now than its arms deficit.
“Even with the money, even with the munitions, there have to be people on the front lines to deal with the Russian aggression,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters in Brussels last week.
A communications adviser to Zelenskyy said Ukraine “will not compensate for the lack of weapons, aviation, or long-range capabilities with the youth of our men, and it is unfair to demand this from Ukraine.”
“Unfortunately, we’ve always had fewer weapons than needed and are far from matching Russia’s advantages in aviation, bombs, and missiles,” Dmytro Lytvyn said in a statement.
“This is what we explain to our partners,” he added. “We are fighting to protect the Ukrainian people, while (Russian President Vladimir) Putin is fighting for his right to destroy. … He does not value human lives, but we do.”
Even with Ukraine in a precarious battlefield situation, many of the military’s fiercest backers are against reducing the draft age to 18. They say Ukraine’s young people should be protected most, as they’re the country’s future and are free from the decades of Russian influence past generations experienced.
Though young men have historically been the backbone of most armies, the question of who should serve in the fight is deeply divisive in Ukrainian society. Mobilization is unpopular, and Zelenskyy’s administration has said further lowering the mobilization age — it’s now 25, which is old compared with other countries — doesn’t make sense when there aren’t enough weapons to equip the soldiers already on the battlefield.
It’s unclear if the debate will continue to be a sticking point between Kyiv and Washington after U.S. president-elect Donald Trump is inaugurated next month. He has promised to broker a swift end to the fighting, but Ukrainians are concerned they’ll be forced into territorial concessions.
Ukrainians have characterized Russia’s invasion as a genocide that has already killed too many of their brightest and most patriotic people on the front lines. Some influential activists have said that Ukraine should sooner start drafting women than lower the conscription age.
Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s former commander-in-chief who called on Zelenskyy to mobilize more troops, is among those against conscripting 18-year-olds.
“We need Ukraine to exist in 20 or 30 years,” said Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s ambassador to Britain, while addressing students in London. “That future lies with them — those who are 18 now. They are a completely different generation who will save this country.”
Men ages 18 to 25 can still volunteer to serve in Ukraine’s military, but recruitment numbers have lagged across the country as the war grinds on. Most men who wanted to volunteer have already done so.
There are also potential long-term demographic considerations; people under 30 are part of Ukraine’s smallest generation in its modern history. Ukrainian officials point out that men age 25 and older are more likely to already have at least one child than those under 25.
Oleksandr Gladun, deputy director of the Ptoukha Institute for Demography and Social Studies, said the country’s birth rates started to fall after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, when it faced economic difficulties. The lowest birth rate recorded was in 2001, he said, adding that Ukraine’s military leadership asked the institute for an assessment two years ago.
“Right now, Ukraine is facing the most difficult situation, but we need to survive it and fight through it,” Gladun said. “We are living in a new reality, including a demographic one.”
Zelenskyy lowered the draft age from 27 to 25 in April and did away with an array of exemptions to try to boost personnel numbers. But progress has been slow. Kyiv intended to draft 200,000 new soldiers by the end of this year after the new mobilization measures were approved in the spring, Ukrainian officials said. But some believe that’s still not enough.
Zaluzhny had previously advocated for drafting 500,000 men — a figure that Zelenskyy dismissed as too high before he fired Zaluzhny months later.
U.S. officials say there is spare capacity to help train an entire brigade of Ukrainian recruits outside the country if only Kyiv sent people their way.
While Zelenskyy has repeatedly claimed that its newly formed brigades don’t have the weapons promised by the West, those in field complain that their units are understaffed and struggling to fend off a much larger Russian force.
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Soldiers are also angry that the lagging recruitment means the Ukrainian government hasn’t created any legislation to demobilize the troops who have been fighting since the start of the war.
Yuriy Fedorenko, commander of the Achilles battalion in Ukraine’s 92nd Brigade, proposed in an interview that, even in peacetime, all men and women should begin mandatory military service from the age of 18, but that they would not see combat action until at least 23. The first five years would be devoted to training, he said.
“We must tell the Ukrainian nation today: Friends, starting next year, everyone will be subject to military conscription,” Fedorenko said.
“This decision is not popular — oh, everyone must serve — but on the other hand, if you break it down, this decision enables us to act preemptively to prevent war,” he added. “When a nation is prepared, any potential aggressor will think twice before starting a full-scale war.”
Ukrainian lawmakers have called for other compromises, possibly lowering the conscription age to 20 instead of 18. Col. Roman Kostenko, a parliamentarian who has served in the military, said in an interview with Ukrainian television that he is often asked by his U.S. counterparts in Congress for a reason Kyiv won’t draft younger. And he doesn’t have a good explanation.
“It’s hard for me to explain because I don’t know,” he said. “But in reality, when we are fighting in the most brutal war, some people are being conscripted while others are not.”
— Michael Birnbaum contributed to this report.