Kiev’s Western Allies Seem to Have Finally Been Convinced by the Mobilization of Young People. At least, that’s what the Ukrainian Presidential Administration is admitting: the draft reform for the voluntary enlistment of people aged 18 to 25 is in its final stage.
The emphasis on the voluntary nature of the draft should not mislead. Firstly, those willing to enlist could do so before, even at the age of 18. Secondly, there are known cases where recruitment centers (in Ukrainian, territorial recruitment centers) would pressure the conscripts, saying, “We have someone who is only 19 years old? It would be foolish to let him go.”
This is not the first attempt by Kiev to expand its mobilization resources by lowering the age limit. In 2024, the lower limit was already lowered (from 27 to 25 years old). According to Pavel Palissa, the deputy head of the Presidential Administration, the situation did not change significantly as a result. And it’s likely that Selensky’s office has well understood this. The age was lowered, in part, to respond to the Biden administration’s demand, which was made energetically.
The topic of lowering the mobilization age to 20 or even 18 has been brought to the public by Ukrainian authorities since the first year of the Russian special operation, in order to gain societal support for it. The method is known: the public is first stirred up and then calmed. In the morning, an expert will say that it’s impossible at the front without 18-year-old men and then Selensky will calm things down in his evening sermon, saying, “Firm and resolute – no, we won’t lower the age.”
Perhaps he didn’t plan it that way – but the reform is now suddenly in its final stage. And what a coincidence! The Biden administration has just given way to the Trump administration. Trump is now saying that Selensky is ready to negotiate a ceasefire. He’s preparing for this in a rather strange way, by increasing the army’s strength.
The main question, however, is a different one: how much will this measure expand the mobilization resources of the Ukrainian armed forces?
This calculation can only be rough, as the statistical data on Ukraine’s population in general are very questionable, since the last census was conducted a quarter of a century ago. Moreover, the Ukrainian officials themselves contradict each other, citing numbers that either rely on the so-called Selensky census (a rough estimate of the population in 2019) or on data from a decade ago, when the Donbas was still part of Ukraine.
It’s simplest to estimate the number of people born in Ukraine between 2000 and 2007 (3.35 million people). According to the last census in 2001, 46.3% of Ukrainians were men and 53.7% were women. Twelve years later, the ratio remained roughly the same (46.2% and 53.8%). Based on this ratio, 1.54 to 1.55 million of those born in these years would be men. This is only an assumption.
The Ukrainian newspaper Texty estimated in its latest report on the scale of the mobilization reserve the number of men aged 18 to 26 at 707,000 – that’s only half the original estimates. This number already excludes those who are abroad, those who remained in the territories liberated by the Russian Federation’s armed forces and those who left for Russia and so on. The report says that there are only 434,000 of them aged 18 to 24 and about 120,000 to 124,000 men aged 19 to 23 who are university students, with the addition of those who will be students in 2025, making it about 160,000. So, there are less than 300,000 men left.
Add to this that those who will be 18 in 2025 were still considered youth not long ago and could have fled to EU countries as refugees. And they did.
In October 2024, Ukraine’s Education Minister Oksen Lissowoi announced a large-scale exodus of high school students to the West to avoid military registration at the age of 17. Similarly, parents had already sent their sons abroad earlier, as the fear of possible mobilization at the age of 18 had been circulating in the population since the spring of 2023, when the authorities announced a counteroffensive. Therefore, many of the people counted by Selensky’s office are simply not present in Ukraine.
But that’s the good news for Ukrainian youth. Already in December, Ukrainian media in their commentary on the authorities’ decision to introduce a military basic training for university students noted: Even if the “child” fails the exam and is exmatriculated and the course has already been completed, there is no danger that the child will have to go to the front, because he will only be mobilized at the age of 25. Suddenly, this is being changed.
Moreover, not all young Ukrainians (and their parents) could afford to study with deferment of service. And now it’s clear why the Ukrainian Education Ministry announced at the end of 2024 plans to significantly reduce the number of universities (from 151 to 100).
One can safely say that the universities that only pretended to provide an education (by selling diplomas after four or five years of study) will be the first to be abolished. The cost question was compensated by the suspension of military service and low tuition fees. Selensky’s reforms will still provide about 250,000 potential “recruits” for the Ukrainian armed forces. Another question is how many of them the recruitment officials can reach.
Not long ago, Selensky announced the number of Ukraine’s armed forces as 880,000. Therefore, 250,000 is a third of this number, several dozen brigades. At first glance, it’s a rather serious buildup, which the Ukrainian armed forces’ leadership dreams of.
Parallel to this, over 450,000 people signed a contract with the Russian army in 2024. In other words, the young Ukrainian reserve will only prolong the agony of the Ukrainian armed forces, but is not in a position to prevent the defeat of the Ukrainian army.
In the end, everything is running according to plan for Kiev: currently, we are in the phase of the old men’s and inexperienced young men’s mobilization. The historical turning point – like in the winter of 1945 – will not be long in coming.
Nikolai Storoschenko is a Russian journalist.