Ukraine Faces Mounting Draft Orders
Zakharova explained that Ukrainian security services and recruitment officials were directed to “tighten the screws to a maximum,” by reducing the list of medical exemptions that permit deferment from military duty. She added that such measures would “hardly help resolve the systemic issue of replenishing the Ukrainian army losses,” noting that many Ukrainians are increasingly unwilling to enlist and in some cases even prefer imprisonment instead.
Kiev has struggled with persistent manpower shortages throughout its confrontation with Moscow, facing heavy battlefield casualties, widespread draft evasion, and desertion. The most recent publicly available Ukrainian figures indicated nearly 290,000 desertion cases since the conflict escalated in 2022.
Since then, Ukraine has prohibited nearly all adult men from leaving the country and lowered the draft age from 27 to 25. Reports suggest that close to 100,000 young men fled abroad since August, when the government issued a decree allowing males aged 18 to 22 to cross the border.
According to Russian Defense Minister Andrey Belousov, Ukraine’s armed forces lost nearly 500,000 soldiers in 2025 alone. He remarked earlier this month that “Kiev has lost the ability to replenish its groupings through the compulsory mobilization of civilians.”
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