The White House is pressuring Ukraine to increase the size of its military by lowering the minimum age of conscription from 25 to 18, The Associated Press reported on Wednesday.
A senior Biden administration official said the outgoing administration wants Ukraine to start drafting 18-year-olds to expand the current pool of fighting-age males. The pressure from the US comes as polling shows the majority of Ukrainians want peace talks with Russia to end the war.
National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan recently hinted that the US was pressuring Ukraine to expand conscription, saying Ukraine’s biggest problem in the war was the lack of manpower.
“Our view has been that there’s not one weapon system that makes a difference in this battle. It’s about manpower, and Ukraine needs to do more, in our view, to firm up its lines in terms of the number of forces it has on the front lines,” Sullivan said on PBS News Hour last week.
Last month, Serhiy Leshchenko, an aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said Ukraine was under pressure from US politicians to lower the conscription age. “American politicians from both parties are putting pressure on President Zelensky to explain why there is no mobilization of those aged 18 to 25 in Ukraine,” he said.
Zelensky signed a mobilization bill into law back in April that lowered the conscription age from 27 to 25. A few weeks before the mobilization bill became law, Zelensky received a visit from US Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who complained that not enough young Ukrainian med were being sent to the frontline.
“I would hope that those eligible to serve in the Ukrainian military would join. I can’t believe it’s at 27,” Graham said. “You’re in a fight for your life, so you should be serving — not at 25 or 27. We need more people in the line.”
The Biden administration’s push for Ukraine to draft younger men comes as it is doing everything it can to escalate the proxy war before President-elect Donald Trump is inaugurated on January 20. President Biden is seeking another $24 billion to spend on the conflict even though it’s clear there’s no path to a Ukrainian military victory.
The US has previously looked the other way when Useful Regional Allies in Africa or SE Asia used child soldiers. Lower it to 12, whydon'tcha – neither the US or Ukraine are accountable to anyone any more.
So deeply ghoulish and evil.
I can't comment on this post without being hateful …
Should Vila quit school and join…?!
Bob Vila claimed he's "going in" when his schooling ends in 12-18 months or so, intending to get a "cool" role as Drone Pilot.
https://youtu.be/4omZ3JJNhdM?si=aDZ9aYkXncaAAvMu
I mean, my understanding is Bob Vila got Banned on here, then banned AGAIN when he tried to sneak back under some B.S. Russian-looking poor-spellin' alt account.
And thought the moderator was brainless and couldn't figure out who he was.
A monstrous creature. As ED said, ghoulish – and evil.
Them ungrateful bastards. How dare them not sacrifice their young. After all we've done for them.
I agree with your sarcasm, but I think it is pretty telling that the Kiev entity is unwilling and/or unable to draft young men from an age group that is usually considered to be in the prime range for soldiers. As Senator Chicken Hawk said, they are supposedly in a "fight for their life." Well, they are not acting like it. Sure, it is disgusting for the US to demand they expand their draft, but it is also disgusting that the Kiev entity keeps demanding more and more from the West, to the point where they are now close to demanding Western troops, and yet they exempt a large part of their own population from military service. As much as I don't want 18 year olds from Odessa dying for the absurdly pontificated and reified notion of the sanctity of Soviet borders of convenience, I even more don't want 18 year olds from Mississippi, Iowa, or the Bronx doing so.
Beyond that, it seems strange to me that the Kiev regime thinks is it A-OK to press gang daddies and grand daddies, but not young men in their late teens and early 20's. We are not talking about "child soldiers" here!
I think, at a minimum, that it must be admitted that there is something bizarrely inconsistent about all the dire rhetoric coming from the Ukraine itself, of the consequences of the Russians winning, and the exemption of 18 through 25 or even 27 year old Ukrainians from military service. Even in countries NOT involved in supposedly existential wars, drafting men starting at age 18 is hardly unknown. That was the rule in the USA during not only WWII, but also the Korean and Vietnam Wars. Countries facing such existential crises, like Poland in 1939 and France in 1940, started drafting at least at age 20 or 21. Why not in the Ukraine?
Nothing would please me more than to see Jake Sullivan and Lindsey Graham dropped into the front lines with a full compliment of Huggies at their disposal. Fingers crossed some similar type of hell will come their way.
Biden administration villains, period. Awful people protected by a corrupt US media.
I wish it was just the Biden administration. Trump just appointed the odious, disgusting, dishonest, almost unbelievably ignorant piece of shit Retired General Kellogg to be his point man to Ukraine. He'll be backed by the equally despicable Walz at the State Department; even more repellant than the current Biden appointments.
Just like in Europe, with its rigged "coalition" style of governing, there is no point in voting in the US. All you get is one of two sides of the exact same coin.
I guess it could be worse; he could have appointed….Ben Hodges.
All we are saying is give Trump a chance. The man hasn't even been sworn in yet and already you're criticizing him.
We are like small children Warren… Impatient and somewhat petulant.
We SHOULD be more like flowers… Impatiens and petunias.
This isn't his first term in the position and all indications evident since the election indicate the second to be just a repeat of the first, for which there was plenty to criticize.
He had a chance in his first term. We got Haskel, Bolton, Pompeo and their ilk. This time we get Rubio, Stefanik, Waltz, Kellogg etc.
If it looks like a duck, waddles like a duck and quacks like a duck…… it's a duck.
And if it looks like a warmongering cabinet…….
Trump’s choices are all known quantities; Kellogg in particular is an unremittant warmonger and Russophobe, who advocated direct US involvement in the Ukraine war from the very beginning. He’s also 80 years old, testified against Trump in the Jan 6 hearings, opposed leaving Afghanistan, opposed leaving Syria, opposed leaving Iraq. In short, just like Bolton, he espouses every single thing Trump says he is opposed to. Trump’s selection of him is a huge mark against Trump. The choice of Walz is even worse; a loudmouthed, opinionated, vehemently pro-Israel warmongering know-nothing with zero experience except having served in “special forces”, which qualifies him to eat snakes but nothing else. Sorry; I was optimistic about Trump on election day; but after this, not so much.
Should people be praising him for his choices? And his "chance" started when he started appointing his cabinet.
There are already many women in Ukraine's military, but Ukraine should draft the rest of them, along with the men. Women with children should put them in boarding schools abroad, in Poland, for example. I would be happy to support this cause. However, the White House is dead wrong to blame Ukraine for not following Russia's meat-wave tactics. The main reason Ukraine is not doing better is lack of munitions. Tomahawks, for example. Ukraine also needs the UK and France to do what they can in Ukraine behind the lines.
Blackrock thanks you for your support in defending their assets.
Time to be kind to more War?!
Why don't you get your self to the front, and support it with blood and honour!
"the majority of Ukrainians want peace talks"
The majority of Ukrainians never voted for pro-American and pro-NATO politicians. President Yushchenko who first announced about intention of Ukraine to join NATO, came to power as result of "Orange Revolution" organized in 2004 by American specialists and with help of American money. The following 20 years U.S. and other NATO countries spent a lot of money and efforts in creation and escalation of a military conflict on Ukrainian territory. It was possible thanks to corrupted Ukrainian political elite who never cared about Ukrainian people. It doesn't matter what the majority of Ukrainians want as long as they are not ready and not capable to defend their democracy and their human rights against pro-NATO Kiev regime.
Interferring in such a deeply significant cultural tradition of another country is arrogant beyond the usual stupidity of power. People like Sullivan should be deported to Israel.
Remind me what the point of the Ukraine war is again?
Same as Yugoslavia, balkanize Russia
It’s the opposite of Yugoslavia. They want to keep Ukraine together. It’s so stupid and hypocritical that there is a healthy majority of Croatians and even the President himself that have close to zero sympathy for the Ukrainian regime, despite being western, NATO, and Catholic. If the Donbas wants to go free, let them go free. NATO did the same with Bosnia and Kosovo. Oh, all of a sudden now you guys care about the sovereignty of the greater nation? Lol.
It's an international phobia – having to re-draw maps and allow self-determination of nations within countries.
Was necessary or acceptable when the Czech Republic & Slovakia divorced (no kids involved so each took half the country name) and Yugoslavia splintered.
But aspirations of the Kurds, Scots, Flemish, Catalan, Quebecois, Biafranese, North American Indigenous ? No, f**k you guys, we're not having to learn more country names and buy new globes and wall maps for our lush offices. Stay in the relationship you're in.
No, it’s not and, as Lazar mentioned, it’s completely opposite.
In 1991 there was an amendment to the US Foreign Appropriations Act concerning Yugoslavia.
Keep getting the Empire’s $$ contingent on self-determination of all states where only Serbia was threatened with sanctions. What a surprise, isn’t it?
The Empire forced the breakup of Yugoslavia based on this and made it favourable for every country except Serbia.
https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/28/article/702419/pdf
According to Senator Lindsey Graham it's all about the money.
The point is to bring down and break up Russia. It is all about the resources.
And keeping the racket going.
A textbook demonstration that Biden wants ever younger Ukrainians to die for his spat with Putin. Disgusting.
https://grahamenglish.com/10-protest-songs-that-changed-the-world/
Land mines are the gift that keeps on giving and taking: https://apnews.com/article/artificial-intelligence-chatbot-jesus-lucerne-catholic-66268027fbcf4b48972d1d62541f0b16
I like the Marlene Dietrich version of this song better.
Why not have the EU round up all those millions of Ukrainian males lounging in cafes and picking up EU chicks, and send them all back to fight?
Don't know if you are old enough to remember the draft…
When will people realize that the Ukrainian war is Joe Biden's war?
When Biden was Obama's Vice president, he was behind the overthrow of the pro-Russia Ukrainian elected government in Kiev, in February 2014. In December 2021, Joe Biden sabotaged an agreement between Ukraine and Russia to prevent a war. And, to put a cherry on top of everything, in September 2022, Biden gave the go-ahead to blow up the two Nord Stream pipelines bringing Russian gas to Germany.
Now, as a lame duck president, he wants to send Ukrainian kids to get killed in a war that he provoked.
Always like your own posts! Well done good woman!!!
These guys are doing vital work in Ukraine as civilians. Who will replace them? They can volunteer to join the Army, but refused. Don't expect them to show up for conscription.
https://www.indianpunchline.com/atlanticists-mobilise-to-salvage-nato-as-russia-toughens-its-stance/
Authored by MK Bhadrakumar.
The Biden administration's response toward Russia would be typical for an outgoing US president who's not facing political repercussions and is unconcerned about an asymmetrical Russian military and economic response. A Russian nuclear response isn't conceivable to Blinken and Sullivan.
What if NATO and Ukrainian targets were overwhelmed with Oresnik-type missile fusillades before Trump assumed the presidency? Does Biden's apolitical posture become existential?
Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron face minimal domestic political stress while their governments have become increasingly unstable and statist-leaning. The Russians achieve nothing if they don't target Britain's and France's Scalp and Storm Shadow missiles wherever deployed.
Existential Dread!
They've just been overwhelmed, word is that now they will start focusing on decision making centers. [in Ukraine but who knows where that will lead]
18 year olds are the future of Ukraine
https://youtu.be/FqmVWMGfGHA?t=931
The 35-40 group is expended. Maybe they should ask the EU to round up all the millions of Ukrainian males currently lounging in the EU and send them to the Front.
Change the wording and re-post … blocked.
Russia should also round up all the millions of Ukrainian males living in the EU. Don't you think?
Pray for President Trump's safety: https://x.com/charliekirk11/status/1862205621346750873
Just when I think it couldn't be any more grotesque ……
Never mind, just prevaricating.
The only surprise to me here was that it wasn't happening already; I'd assumed they were down to 16 or so already. In fact maybe they are and we've just not been told. I've been further assuming that the split wasn't age related at all, rather country kids with less money have been scooped up for slaughter while well to do Kiev residents get to spend the day typing "slava" on the internet all day in between video games.
I thought 18 to 24 year old Ukrainians were already fighting in the War. If your country is being invaded and annexed why wouldn't you enlist that age group? Waiting for the US to send in their kids to do the fighting, like Netanyahoo would no doubt like to see against Hezbollah in Lebanon?