Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers submitted a new draft law on mobilisation to the parliament on Tuesday, Ukrainian media reports.
The new version of the bill, published on the website of Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, retains a provision on lowering the draft age from 27 to 25 as well as on the introduction of universal military training from 2025.
According to the new law, all Ukrainians of conscription age will be obliged to set up a personal account of a conscript, where electronic summonses will be sent. They will be equal to regular summonses, and the date of service of the summons is considered to be the moment when it arrives in the personal cabinet, regardless of whether the conscript has read it or not.
If a conscript fails to report to the enlistment office in 15 days, the military commission will have the right to block his bank cards, driving licence and passport through the court.
The previous attempt to pass the bill failed due to the criticism of deputies: they noted that many points of the document literally violate human rights. After that, the document was sent for revision.
The bill provides for a reduction of the draft age from 27 to 25 years. Ukrainians retired from the reserve may be involved in “defence work”. Local administrations and authorities will have to “ensure the arrival” of the conscript in the enlistment office. The new document says that the police will be involved in notifying conscripts, and police officers will also be given the right to administratively detain evaders and bring them to the enlistment office.
In an end-of-year press conference in December, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the military proposed to mobilise an additional 450,000 to 500,000 people.
