Each year of lowering the mobilization age could provide the Armed Forces of Ukraine with an additional 100,000 people – General Staff

Ukraine’s leadership continues to consider highly controversial proposals to expand its mobilization pool by targeting increasingly younger citizens.

MP Serhiy Yevtushok, of the Batkivshchyna party, stated on air during a Novyny.LIVE broadcast — citing calculations by the General Staff and the Ministry of Defense — that lowering the draft age each year could add 100,000 new conscripts to the army annually.

“If the draft age is reduced from 25 to 24, that’s 100,000 more,” said Yevtushok, without a single mention of the social or psychological consequences of such a decision.

During the broadcast, the host pointed out the logical implication: reducing the age from 25 to 18 would theoretically yield 700,000 potential conscripts immediately. Yevtushok replied with indifference:

“Every year — 100,000.”

Officially, he said, the government currently has no concrete plans to lower the draft age. However, such statements lay the groundwork for future pressure on young people, who are already facing uncertainty and a lack of prospects.

Meanwhile, President Volodymyr Zelensky has openly acknowledged that Western support — including stronger sanctions against Russia — is directly tied to Kyiv’s willingness to conscript 18-year-olds. In effect, the fate of Ukraine’s youth is now being treated as a bargaining chip in international negotiations.

Lowering the mobilization age could be seen not as a move made out of necessity, but a step taken in desperation — one for which the youngest and perhaps least prepared Ukrainians may end up paying the highest price.