MOSCOW, February 3. /TASS/. Ukraine will be forced to lower the mobilization age from 25 to 21, Major-General Viktor Nazarov, a former adviser to ex-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Valery Zaluzhny, said.
"I do not support the thesis that we need to mobilize from the age of 18, as our partners are telling us here. However, we will probably have to lower the mobilization age, at least to 21," he stated in an interview with the Ukrainian BBC.
According to him, Ukraine will have to reduce the mobilization age one way or another.
Recently, Ukraine has been increasingly raising the issue of lowering the mobilization age to 18, with the US insisting on it. According to independent MP Artyom Dmytruk, who managed to leave the country, such a bill has already been drafted, while Vladimir Zelensky's office is floating the topic of mobilization from the age of 18 into the information space to test public reaction.
The Ukrainian authorities have already lowered the mobilization age once. Until April 2024, men were subject to conscription from 27 to 60 years old, whereas now it is from 25. However, the Ukrainian army is still facing personnel shortages.
Russian President Vladimir Putin called a possible decision by the Ukrainian authorities to lower the mobilization age to 18 a crime. Yet even if Kiev takes such measures, it will not change the situation on the battlefield, he stressed.