On Thursday, Ukrainian lawmakers adopted an army mobilisation measure to increase troop numbers against Russia, a day after a clause allowing long-serving soldiers to return home from the front was removed.
The rule is intended to facilitate army recruiting, but it has sparked outrage in a country tired by more than two years of fighting Moscow’s forces.
“The mobilisation bill was adopted as a whole,” MP Yaroslav Zheleznyak wrote on Telegram.
He stated that 283 of the parliament’s 450 members had voted in favor of the measure, which toughens penalties for conscription dodgers.
A failed 2023 counter-offensive against Russia, as well as the obstruction of critical US military aid in Congress, have damaged Ukraine’s military.
It is also suspected to have sustained significant losses.
Earlier this month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reduced the mobilization age from 27 to 25 due to a shortage of soldiers to resist Russian forces.
And, on Wednesday, parliament announced that a popular measure demobilizing soldiers who had been fighting for 36 months will be repealed at the army’s request.
The mobilisation bill must yet be signed by Zelensky in order to go into effect.
He took nearly a year to approve a prior bill that reduced the mobilization age after it was ratified by parliament.