Ukrainian Parliament Approves Army Mobilisation Law

Ukrainian lawmakers approved on Thursday an army mobilisation bill to bolster troop numbers against Russia, a day after a clause allowing long-serving soldiers to return home from the front was scrapped.

The law is designed to facilitate army recruitment but has caused some anger in a nation exhausted by more than two years of battling Moscow’s forces.

“The bill on mobilisation was adopted as a whole,” MP Yaroslav Zheleznyak said in a post on Telegram.

He said 283 of the parliament’s 450 deputies had voted in favour of the legislation, which toughens punishments for draft dodgers.

The Ukrainian military has been weakened by a failed 2023 counter-offensive against Russia and by the blocking in the US Congress of key US military aid.

It is also believed to have suffered huge losses.

Earlier this month Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky lowered the mobilisation age from 27 to 25 because Kyiv is short of soldiers to fight Russian forces.

And on Wednesday parliament announced a popular clause on demobilising soldiers who had been fighting for 36 months was being scrapped at the demand of the army.

Zelensky is still required to sign the mobilisation law for it to take effect.

He took almost a year to sign a previous bill lowering the mobilisation age after it was passed by parliament.