MOSCOW, July 18. /TASS/. A Ukrainian army officer has noted that by saying that demobilization will only be possible after a total victory on the battlefield, Vladimir Zelensky has sealed a terrible fate for hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers.

"When he says ‘only after victory’ it’s effectively a death sentence for hundreds of thousands of people. <…> Yesterday, Ukraine moved one step closer to becoming <…> a country where a soldier can only wrap up his service after being severely wounded, disabled or killed," Denis Yaroslavsky wrote on his Facebook page (Facebook is banned in Russia due to its ownership by Meta, which has been designated as extremist).

While introducing his nominee for prime minister to members of Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada, or parliament, on Thursday, Vladimir Zelensky fended off a question about demobilization asked by Alexey Goncharenko (put on Russia’s list of terrorists and extremists), a lawmaker with the European Solidarity party, by saying that those who are fighting in the conflict zone would be able to return home only after the conflict is over.

The issue of demobilizing those drafted in the Ukrainian army since early 2022 has been regularly raised in Ukrainian society. Family members of those serving in the army since the beginning of the conflict have been staging protests demanding their demobilization.

General mobilization was announced in Ukraine in February 2022 and has been extended several times since. On May 18, 2024, a scandalous law toughening mobilization rules came into force, stripping many draft-age men of the right to draft exemption. Before passing the law, the authorities promised that it would have provisions on demobilization and rotation but excluded them from the final version of the document. The authorities admit that rotation of servicemen cannot be carried out due to manning problems, and work on a relevant bill has been stalled.