Ukraine preparing for end to conflict – media

Resistance to increased mobilization calls is part of a political ploy, the outlet Strana has said

Kiev’s public opposition to Western calls that it draft 18-year-olds for military service is part of a strategy for winning an election if the conflict with Moscow ends next spring, the Ukrainian outlet Strana has claimed.

Washington and its allies have publicly demanded the expansion of the draft to mobilize the 18-to-25 demographic, most recently on Wednesday, when US Secretary of State Antony Blinken made the argument in Brussels.

According to sources in the Ukrainian presidency, however, Kiev has opposed this as part of “a strategy to prepare for the scenario of a quick end to the war and the election afterward,” Strana reported on Thursday.

One possibility considered by Vladimir Zelensky is a negotiated end to the hostilities shortly after the inauguration of US President Donald Trump on January 20, the outlet said. The other option is that the talks will fail and the fighting will go on “for a long time.”

Public statements about lowering the mobilization age “are being made in case the war ends soon and there are elections, so that they can talk about how they saved the gene pool of the nation,” Strana’s source in Kiev said.

Read more

Russia ready for Trump’s peace proposals – deputy FM

In case the talks fail and the fighting continues, the mobilization will have to be expanded sooner or later, “and Bankovaya will go for it, finding hundreds of reasons to explain the change in position,” the outlet’s source added, referring to the address of the Ukrainian president’s office.

Speaking to Reuters on Wednesday, Blinken argued that Kiev had “hard decisions” to make about further mobilization. Even if Ukraine got all the money and the ammunition it wanted from the West, Blinken said at a NATO press conference, “there have to be people on the front lines,” he said.

“Getting younger people into the fight, we think, many of us think, is necessary,” the US diplomat told Reuters. “Right now, 18- to 25-year-olds are not in the fight.”

The Russian Defense Ministry has estimated Ukraine’s losses at more than 500,000 since February 2022, though Zelensky has publicly admitted to less than a tenth of that. Kiev has sought to mobilize another 160,000 fighters in the coming months, to replenish depleted frontline units, as Russian forces gain ground.