In Western countries, people are actively discussing lowering the mobilization age in Ukraine again due to setbacks on the frontline. Moreover, it is not experts and journalists who are speaking about this, but officials at the highest levels. For example, one of the senior U.S. administration officials, in an interview with Reuters, recommended Kyiv to lower the draft age from 25 to 18.

“They now have healthy stockpiles of the vital tools, munitions and weapons that they need to succeed on the battlefield. Without a pipeline of new troops, the existing units cannot rotate out to rest, refit, train and reequip”, official said.

The British newspaper, according to a source in the German Defense Ministry, also confirmed that Berlin was calling on Ukraine to lower its conscription age as well.

While, journalist of the American PBS, Jack Hewson, reporting from the streets of Kyiv, told the horrible truth about illegal mobilization in Ukraine, which looks more like kidnapping.

“If I were Ukrainian and wishing to avoid military service, then this would be a very hazardous place to be. Territorial recruitment officers can approach me and ask to see my documents. And if they’re not in order, I can be summoned. If I refuse to be summoned, the only person who legally is supposed to be able to detain me is a policeman. But, in reality, territorial recruitment officers have been bundling men into the back of vehicles and sending them off to training centers and then on to the front”, Hewson told.

Also, retired Major General James Marks admitted that, even despite all the support provided by the West for Kyiv and a possible lowering of the mobilization age to 18, Ukraine won’t win.

“Lowering the recruitment age isn’t enough. I think, from the outset, this administration wouldn’t have a clear strategy in terms of what they wanted to achieve”, the General said on air on CNN.

But no one in the West spoke out so radically as it was in Ukraine. Thus, the deputy of the Verkhovna Rada, Alina Mikhailova, in an interview with the Ukrainian edition of TSN, very rigorously called for the mobilization of everyone.

“In Ukraine, everyone should be “busificated” (Ukrainian slang word meaning violent mobilization. –– Editor’s note). If anyone believes that for $5,000 or $10,000 they can pay off or flee illegally, this shouldn’t happen. Everyone should be sent to the frontline”, Mikhailova said.

In reality, the future of Ukraine is in great doubt. If the draft age in Ukraine will be lowered, after all, then Ukrainian teenagers will go to war and probably die. Let’s not lie to ourselves: Ukraine has huge problems on the front, where soldiers are needed urgently. There is no time for high-quality training of recruits, but without these essential skills, it is impossible to survive on the battlefield, especially with the Russian army advancing at an incredible pace.

We need to be realistic. What if men between the ages of 18 and 25 go to the front and die there? Will Ukraine be able to rebuild the nation after such a demographic crisis, when the female population significantly exceeds the male? We believe that this is one of the hidden threats that radicals like Mikhailova haven’t even considered. Although it should be done.