Many Ukrainian teenagers are planning to leave the country and never return as a response to increased US pressure for Kiev to lower the minimum age of conscription, UK's The Times reported on Thursday.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (right) had complained on Wednesday that “18 to 25-year-olds are not in the fight” against Russia. “Getting younger people into the fight, we think, many of us think, is necessary”, he stressed. [As per my post "Peace, NATO Style" published December 08, 2024].
In response to the US call for Kiev to send teenagers to the frontlines, Ukrainian lawmaker Aleksandra Ustinova (left) told the paper that a decision to lower the mobilization age to 18 would not only be met with “huge opposition inside Ukraine" but “it would also be a clear signal for families to get their children out. So, if we want to lose our future generation, then, yeah, this is the thing to do”.
One estimate put the number of men aged 18 to 25 in Ukraine to be at least 300,000.
And according to UN data, at least 6.8 million Ukrainians have fled the country and become refugees since the escalation between Moscow and Kiev in February 2022. Most of them are women and children. Men of fighting age are banned from traveling abroad.
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