Concession to Demos
Kyiv promises rotation for long-serving conscripts
November 25, 2023, 4:38 a.m
Listen to article
This audio version was artificially generated. More info | Send feedback
There are currently over 800,000 Ukrainians serving in the armed forces. The country needs more soldiers and at the same time must offer others a chance to recover or even be discharged. President Zelenskyy speaks of difficult questions that are being discussed in the General Staff.
Despite the ongoing Russian war of aggression, the Ukrainian leadership wants to release soldiers from the armed forces at the end of their compulsory military service. At the General Staff meeting, serious questions of mobilization, demobilization and rotation were addressed, said President Volodymyr Zelensky in his daily video message. These are conscripts who were drafted before the war began. According to Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine Olexiy Danilov, Zelensky has asked the military leadership to demobilize these soldiers.
While Danilov stated that the layoffs should begin in the near future, Zelensky himself remained much more reserved. A concrete plan for mobilization will be presented next week. Zelensky made the announcement at a joint press conference with Latvia’s Edgars Rinkevics. There are currently around 820,000 Ukrainians serving in the armed forces. In order to be able to send at least some of the conscripts home for a certain period of time, other soldiers must be recruited so that the front does not collapse.
The promises are seen as a concession to the soldiers who have fought on the front since the Russian war of aggression began 21 months ago. In recent weeks there have been several demonstrations by relatives of these conscripts calling for increased rotation to give the fighters the opportunity to recover for a longer period of time. However, according to the current martial law, the soldiers cannot be demobilized so easily. To do this, a new law would have to be passed.