The US is acting unreasonably by pushing Ukraine to lower its mobilization age as Kiev lacks weapons to arm its existing troops, Dmitry Litvin, an aide to Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky, has said.
AP and Reuters reported on Wednesday that Washington has been urging Ukraine to begin conscripting men as young as 18 in order to source sufficient manpower to resist Russia on the battlefield. The current minimum fighting age that Kiev imposes is 25.
“It does not make sense to see calls for Ukraine to lower the mobilization age, presumably in order to draft more people, when we can see that previously announced equipment is not arriving on time. Because of these delays, Ukraine lacks weapons to equip already mobilized soldiers,” Litvin wrote on X on Thursday.
The US and its allies have access to all relevant data and can “compare promises to actual deliveries” themselves, he added.
Litvin, who was previously Zelensky’s speechwriter and became an aide in September, insisted that “Ukraine cannot be expected to compensate for delays in logistics or hesitation in support with the youth of our men on the front line.”
According to AP and Reuters, a senior official from the administration of outgoing US President Joe Biden, who spoke to journalists on condition of anonymity, has claimed that Ukraine needed to lower mobilization age because it is not drafting or training enough troops to replace its battlefield losses.
“The need right now is manpower. The Russians are in fact making progress, steady progress, in the east, and they are beginning to push back Ukrainian lines in Kursk... Mobilization and more manpower could make a significant difference at this time as we look at the battlefield today,” the official said.
Earlier on Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Zelensky and his government “have no right to push people to their deaths and drive them to slaughter.”
Any orders given by the current Ukrainian authorities are “criminal” because “they did not hold an election, they are completely illegitimate,” he insisted.
Zelensky remains in power in Ukraine despite his term in office having officially expired in May. He scrapped the presidential election, citing the martial law he imposed early in the conflict with Russia.
Putin insisted that Russian troops “are fighting for their Motherland, for the future of Russia and their children, and therefore no deliveries of even the most advanced weapons to the Ukrainian territory will change the situation on the battlefield.”