Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday that the rigours of nearly three years of war did not allow for changes in mobilisation rules because if soldiers left for home en masse, Russian President Vladimir Putin “will kill us all”.
Zelenskiy told Italian journalist Cecilia Sala, who was released this month after being detained for 21 days in Iran, that the toll of war on Ukrainians and their families underscored the need to bring the conflict rapidly to an end.
Parliament approved new mobilisation rules last year to boost numbers of those at the front, but Ukraine’s fighting forces are still badly outnumbered by their Russian adversaries.
“The wartime situation calls for mobilisation of people and all the resources we have in the country. Absolutely all of them,” Zelenskiy said in the interview, excerpts of which were posted on the president’s Telegram channel.
“And, unfortunately, that is the challenge of this war and that is why we have to speed things up to the maximum to end it, to oblige Russia to end this war,” Zelenskiy said.
“Today, we are defending ourselves. If tomorrow, for instance, half the army heads home, we really should have surrendered on the very first day. That is how it is. If half the army goes home, Putin will kill us all.”
The legislation approved last year, lowered the age of mobilisation for Ukrainian men from 27 to 25 years, narrowed exemptions and imposed penalties on evaders.
Zelenskiy and others have rejected suggestions by politicians in the United States, Ukraine’s biggest Western backer, that the draft age be lowered further on grounds that Ukrainian forces at the front are not sufficiently well armed.
Members of some units in areas deemed critical to ensuring Ukraine’s defensive lines have not enjoyed any leave since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of the country in February 2022.
Russian forces failed in their initial advance on the capital Kyiv, but have since focused their efforts on securing all of Donbas, made up of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, in Ukraine’s east.
Russian forces occupy about 20% of Ukraine’s territory and have been recording their fastest gains since the invasion in their advance in the east, while holding part of four Ukrainian regions.