Ukraine on Wednesday lowered the military conscription age from 27 to 25 in an effort to replenish its depleted ranks after more than two years of war following Russia’s full-scale invasion.
The new mobilization law came into force a day after Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed it. Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, passed it last year.
It was not immediately clear why Zelenskyy took so long to sign the measure into law. He didn’t make any public comment about it, and officials did not say how many new soldiers the country expected to gain or for which units.
Conscription has been a sensitive matter in Ukraine for many months amid a growing shortage of infantry on top of a severe ammunition shortfall that has handed Russia the battlefield initiative. Russia’s own problems with manpower and planning have so far prevented it from taking full advantage of its edge.
That’s not what I said, or what the situation on the ground is. If Zelensky were to trade away territory the people would get rid of him. Ukraine is a democracy, even if he wanted to he couldn’t act against the overwhelming will of the people.
It’s a massive difference whether you draft for offensive or defensive purposes. Also, whether or not you throw people at the enemy with or without training and even weapons. That’s a thing that very much does not happen in Ukraine.
Objectively, yes. But what matters for Putin’s decision is not objective reality but his subjective judgement. “Talk softly and carry a big stick” doesn’t really work if you have someone who thinks that “talks softly” means “doesn’t have it in them to use the stick”. Russia overall seems to think that ruthlessness is something you have to train, develop, and they pride themselves in having done it – in reality, it’s the other way around.
Is an overwhelming will and war sentiment even there? Because I can’t seem to notice signs of that.
My point around NATO is that since it’s objectively not a “paper tiger”, it will respond should Putin be mad enough to attack a NATO country. The escalation will be very quick, and the reaction very overwhelming for Russian forces. And, as politically mad as Putin is, he does understand a thing or two about politics and NATO.
You mean of the people in the street cheering for marching troops kind of thing? Ukraine isn’t the country for that, they don’t like war, but when needs be then needs be and the polls show that.
His understanding is of the cunning, not smart kind. If he was actually smart he wouldn’t have started this whole shitshow in the first place. He would’ve long understood that his underlings are feeding him bad info out of a desire to look good and counter-steered, and not made various other fatal strategic blunders. Maybe there’s a reason why he never ranked higher than Lieutenant in the KGB.
Could you please link the polls again?
He’s smart enough not to attack a NATO country, and even if not, he’d quickly pay the full price for such actions.