Ukraine: 'Every citizen must join the army'
(Baonghean.vn) - Aleksey Danilov, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, affirmed that no Ukrainian citizen is exempt from serving the country and helping the country in the conflict with Russia.
Speaking to Liga, Danilov called the idea that every Ukrainian “must go to war or do military service” a “basic truth”. “One should not be surprised. We live in a rather complicated world where we have to defend our country in the face of a crazy neighbor nearby,” he stressed. He also referred to a recent article in the Telegraph by former British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace, who pointed out that “the average age of [Ukrainian] soldiers at the front is over 40” and suggested that Kiev should reassess the scale of its mobilization by including more young people. “In terms of age, the idea that war is fought only in trenches … is a thing of the past,” Danilov said, explaining that many modern military systems can fight while stationed in the rear. He also described the idea that every soldier in the Ukrainian army must be young as “a bit distorted”.
Asked whether Kiev planned to demobilize any part of its military, especially those that have been fighting for months, Danilov did not specify whether top Ukrainian officials had discussed the issue. But he added that if a decision were to be made, it would have to be in the form of a law.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky declared a general mobilization shortly after the conflict with Russia broke out, banning most men between the ages of 18 and 60 from leaving the country. However, the campaign has been marred by rampant corruption, with the Ukrainian leader firing all senior regional officials in August.
Last month, Sergey Rakhmanin, a member of the Ukrainian parliament’s military committee, predicted that Kiev would try to mobilize more troops to make up for losses in the counteroffensive. Kiev launched a major counteroffensive in early June but has struggled to make any significant progress since. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Wednesday that Ukraine was “losing” and claimed that the country’s military was losing morale amid high casualty rates. Last month, he said Kiev had lost more than 90,000 servicemen since the start of the counteroffensive.
