Ukraine’s draft exemption rules may change: an MP explained who risks losing their deferment

The Armed Forces of Ukraine are experiencing an acute shortage of personnel, which is why the issue of revising the rules for deferments from mobilization has repeatedly been discussed in society.

As part of army reform in Ukraine, all deferments should be reviewed. This applies not only to working men, but also to students who have received draft deferrals.

This was stated by Yurii Zdebskyi, a lawmaker from the Servant of the People party.

“Of course, deferments need to be reconsidered. There is a lot of speculation around this topic, but there are also questions about exemptions. In our country, people become students at 50 and at 40,” Zdebskyi said.

He clarified that the issue is not deferment itself, but the approach to it, since there are many “fake” deferments. At the same time, there are also people among those exempted who work at critical enterprises.

“This is a rather difficult conversation. But we need to think and change approaches, create clear rules. We need to monitor deferments and exemptions, and for this a corresponding oversight body must be created,” the lawmaker added.

According to him, deferments should also remain in place for the agricultural sector, farmers, and critical infrastructure, so that the country can function during wartime. However, this does not mean that people who simply do not want to go to the front should be able to take advantage of it.

“We need to improve deferments, mobilization, exemptions, and so on. The army needs people,” he concluded.

The number of workers exempted from mobilization in Ukraine stands at 1.3 million, which marks a significant increase over the past year. This indicates an expansion of the deferment mechanism and a growing role for it in supporting the economy during the war.

As a reminder, one of the ideas currently being discussed at the level of Verkhovna Rada subcommittees is to require companies that exempt their employees from mobilization to send several people in place of each exempted worker.

It has also been reported that Ukraine may introduce changes to its approach to mobilization in order to reduce the number of conflict situations involving TCC employees. At the same time, restrictions for those evading mobilization may become stricter.