“Pure mathematics”. The US explained the requirement for Kyiv to call up 18-year-old Ukrainians to the front: Ukraine: Former USSR: Lenta.ru

The administration of current US President Joe Biden is putting pressure on Ukraine to lower the conscription age to 18 years in order to quickly increase the size of the Ukrainian army. About this reports Reuters citing sources.

“The outgoing Biden administration wants Kyiv authorities to revise the mobilization law and lower the conscription age from the current 25 to 18 years in order to expand the pool of military-age men who can help the vastly outnumbered Ukrainian Armed Forces (AFU) compared to Russia,” — a source from the White House told the agency on condition of anonymity. According to him, Ukraine currently needs more human resources to participate in the conflict.

Later, a high-ranking American official indicated Associated Press that Washington is demanding that Ukraine lower the conscription age due to the current situation at the front.

He noted that now Kyiv is not mobilizing enough people to make up for existing losses. At the same time, the White House representative added that the US authorities consider the Ukrainian side’s estimate, according to which it is necessary to call up another 160 thousand people, to be underestimated.

President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky commented during the presentation of his “resilience plan”, a possible reduction in the age of mobilization in Ukraine. According to him, instead of lowering the mobilization age, the authorities will offer citizens under the age of 25 contracts with the Armed Forces of Ukraine with a motivation package.

They wanted to send police and military pensioners to the Armed Forces of Ukraine

Verkhovna Rada Deputy Irina Konstankevich noticedthat military pensioners can be drafted into the troops. “In the rear there are more than 100 thousand military pensioners of “fitting age”, capable of holding weapons in their hands, but receiving only pensions from the state,” the people’s deputy said. She added that emergency services and law enforcement officers could also be sent to the front.

At the same time in the media appeared news that the authorities of the Sumy region decided to mobilize all employees of public utilities and critical infrastructure in two days. The mayor of the city of Konotop, Artem Semenikhin, noted that they decided to deprive utility workers of their reservation from mobilization against the backdrop of a critical situation with water and heat supply. In addition, the head of the Sumy regional military administration, Vladimir Artyukh, ordered to allocate one person to each employee of the military registration and enlistment office in order to ensure that they are mobilized within the designated period.

In Ukraine they decided to mobilize the sick and mentally retarded

Previously reportedthat the Ukrainian military department included in the list of people with certain forms of psychological illnesses and mental retardation fit for service in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Such people will be sent to serve in territorial recruitment centers (analogues of military registration and enlistment offices).

Since October in the Armed Forces of Ukraine stopped remove from military registration even those who are completely unfit for service, said military lawyer Daria Golodnyak. The corresponding order was issued by the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine. Previously, the category “unfit with exclusion from military registration” made it possible for seriously ill people to be completely excluded from the registry. Now this status has been abolished and is simply called “Unfit for Service”, without providing for exclusion from the registry.

Against this backdrop, reports emerged of the forced mobilization of disabled people. Thus, Ukrainian prisoner of war Vasily Mashiko toldthat the military commissars forcibly mobilized him into the army as deputy commander of a platoon of attack aircraft, despite the fact that he was diagnosed with the third stage of deafness. Mashiko reported that he was forcibly conscripted and appointed deputy platoon commander of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

In turn, serviceman Alexander Mikhalko, who found himself in Russian captivity, toldthat some of those mobilized in the Ukrainian Armed Forces were brought to the training ground by bus during the exercise because they could not walk due to health problems. According to him, the sick and crippled were recognized as absolutely healthy at the medical examination.