MOSCOW, December 22. /TASS/. Commander-in-Chief of Ukraine's Armed Forces Valery Zaluzhny said he supported the country’s new draft bill on mobilization in general, but disagreed with some of its provisions, including on drafting women for military service.
Maryana Bezuglaya, a lawmaker from the pro-presidential Servant of the People party published Zaluzhny’s comment on her Facebook page. The statement says that "some of [the document’s] provisions do not meet the interests of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and will not boost the country’s defense capabilities."
He argues that registering all women for military service will increase the workload of military commissariats and, therefore, will require hiring additional personnel in large numbers. Moreover, the initiative is likely to meet a negative response in the Ukrainian society and will cause many Ukrainian women to flee the country.
The bill is still at the stage of preparations and has not yet been considered by the country’s parliament, Verkhovna Rada.
In February 2022, Ukraine announced a general mobilization and has repeatedly extended it since. The authorities have been doing everything possible to prevent men of conscription age from dodging the draft. In particular, potential conscripts are banned from traveling abroad. Conscription orders are issued at public administration offices on the streets and many other sites where large numbers of people congregate. Ukrainian media outlets report that many men literally avoid stepping outside their homes for months on end to avoid being forcibly mobilized by mobile conscription squads and sent to the war zone.
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky told a news conference earlier this week that the military had suggested mobilizing an additional 450,000-500,000 men, as well as women. Ukraine’s aggressive mobilization campaign has already sparked numerous scandals. The media regularly publish stories of military mobilization officers using force against citizens when handing out conscription orders, or conscripting people unfit for service for health reasons, as well as many instances of lawmakers and civil servants abusing their authority to surreptitiously secrete their conscription age sons to locations abroad, out of reach of Kiev’s mobilization squads. On August 23, Zelensky said that the military had asked him to step up mobilization activities.