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Ukraine heading for new wave of army drafting — defense ministry

Almost 70,000 Ukrainian military are deployed at present along the Line of Contact in Donbas

KIEV, January 15. /TASS/. Ukraine is heading for a seventh wave of drafting to the army, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said on Friday in a report in Facebook.

"A seventh wave of drafting will take place," it said.

The General Staff said a yet another campaign to resolve problems with manpower in the Ukrainian ground troops will be focused on getting contract servicemen and conscripts likewise.

"The more contract soldiers we get, the fewer draftees we'll need," the report said.

The citizens who complete and eleven-months tour of duty in the army will be given an opportunity to sign contracts for six months and the military who have civil higher education can take three-months-long upgrade courses for getting commissioned ranks.

Ukrainian media said earlier the new wave of drafting was most likely to begin at the end of February to and to take up two months.

Partial drafting to the Armed Forces has taken place six times over the past two years. Ukrainian defense sources say the numeric strength of the Army grew almost twofold over the period to 280,000 servicemen.

Almost 70,000 Ukrainian military are deployed at present along the Line of Contact in Donbas, a territory in eastern Ukraine where the self-proclaimed unrecognized Donetsk and Luhanksk republics are located.

At the moment, the army is staffed with soldiers drafted during the fourth, fifth and sixth waves of drafting.