Zelensky says army wants to mobilise up to 500,000 Ukrainians

President Volodymyr Zelensky said Tuesday he had received a request from his army to mobilise hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians to replenish Kyiv’s forces fending off Russia’s invasion.

The Ukrainian leader said that Ukraine’s military leadership had proposed mobilising “450,000 to 500,000 people” but that he “needed more arguments to support this idea.”

The Ukrainian army is struggling to find new recruits to battle Russian forces that are once again on the offensive, military officials told AFP.

Some Ukrainians who joined the fighting at the February 2022 start are still in combat and exhausted, while volunteers to replace those killed or wounded are becoming rarer, they also said.

Zelensky asked at the start of December that the military command review the recruitment system.

Zelensky said another wave of mobilisation was “very sensitive” and needed to be handled in a fair way.

He also warned that Ukraine may not be able to afford mobilising huge numbers, explaining that roughly six taxpayers were needed to finance one soldier.

“How do we find three million more taxpayers from January on?” Zelensky asked.

The Ukrainian leader also ruled out mobilising women, but said he could agree to lowering men’s conscription age from 27 to 25.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said its country had 617,000 troops deployed in areas of hostilities, and excluded another wave of mobilisation.