The White House appeals to Kiev to significantly increase the number of its soldiers, the AP agency writes.
The outgoing administration of US President Joe Biden is calling on Ukraine to urgently change the military law and replenish the ranks of its armed forces by conscripting more soldiers, including lowering the conscription age from 25 to 18. An unnamed high-ranking US official told the AP agency on Wednesday, writes TASR.
Ukraine has long faced a shortage of manpower on the battlefield in the war with Russia. Washington has provided more than $56 billion in military aid to Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion in February 2022. The US is expected to send Kyiv another multibillion-dollar aid even before Biden leaves office in less than two months.
USA: Ukraine must increase the number of soldiers
However, the White House is increasingly emphasizing that Ukraine has the necessary weapons and must now significantly increase the number of its troops if it wants to stand up to the fight against Russia. Other Western countries also addressed similar calls to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, unnamed European officials told AP.
According to a representative of the Biden administration, the Ukrainians think they need about 160,000 more troops. However, Washington believes that significantly more of them will be needed at the front. He therefore recommends Kiev to take stricter action against deserters and men who avoid conscription.
In April, Zelenskyi signed laws on the basis of which, among other things, the mobilization age was lowered from 27 to 25. These laws also eliminated some draft exemptions and created an online draft registry. It was expected that, based on them, the number of soldiers would increase by approximately 50,000, which was already much less than Zelenskyi called necessary.
Levies in Ukraine are a sensitive issue throughout the war with Russia. Some Ukrainians expressed concern that further lowering of the mobilization age and the departure of young people from work to the front could significantly harm the country’s economy.
