Mobilization in Ukraine
From February 2022, since Russian invasion of Ukraine, first of all, reserve servicemen with combat experience who served in the Armed Forces under a contract or took part in hostilities in the Luhansk and Donetsk Oblasts of the Donbas will be mobilized first.
The presidential decree was approved by the Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine's national parliament) on 3 March 2022, and in accordance with it, men aged 18 to 60 will be mobilized.
[2] However, on 11 January 2016, Poroshenko stated that as soon as he received an appeal from the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine with a request to announce mobilization, he would immediately do it.
[3] In November 2015, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported 2,673 military deaths, including 831 non-combat losses (careless handling of ammunition, suicide, road accidents, etc.
[6] On 17 March 2014, the Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine's national parliament) approved the draft law “On Approval of the Presidential Decree “On Partial Mobilization””, according to the explanatory note to which the need for this decision “is due to the aggravation of the socio-political situation on the Crimean Peninsula, undisguised aggression, the seizure by the Russian side of part of the territory Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol".
[7] The mobilization was planned within 45 days from the date of its entry into force in order to call up 20 thousand people and the same number to the newly created National Guard.
[13] Carrying out the fifth and sixth stages of mobilization in the spring and summer of 2015 was complicated due to a large number of draft dodgers.
The plan of the sixth stage, which ended on 17 August, was completed by only 60%, the shortfall was compensated by the admission of contract servicemen to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
[16] On 29 March, the decree of President Poroshenko on the transfer to the reserve of military personnel of the fourth wave of mobilization (about 45 thousand) came into force.
[17] On 24 June, the decree of President Poroshenko on the transfer to the reserve of military personnel of the fifth wave of mobilization (about 17 thousand) came into force.
According to the Chief of the General Staff Viktor Muzhenko, the demobilization of the sixth wave of conscripts was planned to take place in August–September 2016.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed decree 24 February 2022 № 64/2022 "On the imposition of martial law in Ukraine" on general mobilization in the country, which would commence on 25 February for a period of 90 days, calling up conscripts and reservists; all male Ukrainian citizens aged 18 to 60 were prohibited from travelling abroad, unless they could provide documents that they fulfilled specified conditions for exemption.
[22] On 22 June 2022, a bill was submitted to the Verkhovna Rada prohibiting men of military age from traveling abroad during martial law.
[25] In September 2022, Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine Anna Malyar announced the forthcoming postponement of the deadlines for registering women for military registration for the next year, she clarified that: “The Ministry of Defense, within the framework of its powers, prepared a decree that once again postponed the deadlines for admitting women of certain professions / specialties to the military accounting for another year – until 1 October 2023.
The bill stipulates that conscripts who have been mobilized since 2022 should be pulled in reserve for at least 12 months within the terms determined by the decree of the president of Ukraine.
The bill would, among other things, lower the conscription age from 27 to 25, set a limit to discharge conscripts after 36 months of active duty during martial law, give military recruiters and the state of Ukraine more legal pathways to restrict and punish draft evaders in Ukraine and abroad, and enable them to hand out call-up papers digitally.
The final bill was expected to be adopted in March 2024, filling the gap of the 500,000 new conscripts Ukraine needs to sustain the war.
[46] In late March 2024, the newly appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksandr Syrsky, contrary to his predecessor Zaluzhnyi denied the need to mobilize 500 000, citing that after an audit that number had been significantly reduced.
[52] The government banned the issuance of new passports and the provision of non-emergency consular services to Ukrainian men of military age abroad.
Several reasons for this decrease have been given: "war tourists" and "thrill seekers" were weeded out, part of the volunteers left as they did not expect fighting of such a high intensity in harsh conditions, and some of them reported situations of violent abuse and "suicide missions".
In the latter half of 2023, videos surfaced online showing Ukrainian men violently dragged into vans and driven to the military recruiting centers (TCC).
[60][61][62] Corruption in military medical commissions was described as systematic by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in 2023, with bribes being given in exchange for exemptions from service.
[62][64] Ukrainian Armed Forces servicemen are reported to be some of the oldest in the world, with an average age of 43 in November 2023, 10 years older than in March 2022.
[70] In early 2023, a new law was signed into the Ukrainian Parliament which stated that desertion or "failure to appear for duty without a valid reason" would result in up to 12 years in prison.
