MOSCOW, December 28. /TASS/. Ukraine should mobilize not just 500,000 citizens as fresh recruits for its depleted armed forces, but the country’s entire population, Vitaly Kim, head of the Nikolayev Region administration, said.

"I believe that the entire country should go to war, everyone - not 500,000, but 40 million. And all enterprises should be mobilized and put on a war footing," he said on a broadcast aired by YouTube channel Fabrika Novostei (News Factory), commenting on the parameters of the latest mobilization drive announced by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky.

At the same time, Kim himself did not express any readiness to take up arms and join the ranks of the Ukrainian armed forces.

Kim did not say how he would go about ensuring the mobilization of the entire Ukrainian population. The day before, Ukrainian Finance Minister Sergey Marchenko admitted that he did not know how to finance the mobilization of 500,000 people from out of available state budget funds.

On December 19, Zelensky said that the Ukrainian military command had requested that 500,000 more people be drafted into the armed forces, which would cost an additional 500 bln hryvnia (about $13.4 bln). On December 26, top Ukrainian military commander Valery Zaluzhny refuted Zelensky's statement that the high command had requested that half a million people be mobilized. At the same time, a bill on new mobilization rules was submitted to the Verkhovna Rada, the unicameral Ukrainian parliament, that would allow the Ukrainian authorities to mobilize even disabled people, send draft orders electronically and limit the rights of draft evaders.

The waves of mobilization announced in Ukraine since February 2022 have already led to numerous scandals and exacerbated societal tensions. The staff of Ukraine’s military draft boards are notorious for their frequent use of force and coercion to dragoon citizens and even those unfit for military service into the armed forces, while at the same time Rada members and government officials habitually evade mobilization and send their conscription age sons abroad to avoid serving on the frontlines.