Ukraine plans to mobilize 160,000 people to fill the ranks of its army, the secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of the country, Alexander Litvinenko, said today to the deputies of the Verkhovna Rada, according to a video recording of his speech published by another deputy, France Press reported, BTA reported.
Since the start of the Russian invasion in February 2022, “a total of 1.050 million citizens have been drafted into the army”, Litvinenko told lawmakers behind closed doors. “There are plans to mobilize another 160,000 people”, which will fill the ranks of the army to 85 percent, he added.
Another wave of mobilization will be organized in the next three months – a period for which Ukraine today extended martial law and mobilization, a security source told AFP. Ukraine has declared martial law and general mobilization since the start of the Russian invasion and regularly extends it for 90 days.
Ukraine's parliament voted today to extend the term again by 90 days – from the beginning of November to the beginning of February, reports the website of the institution. Ukrainian authorities generally do not disclose to the public the size of their armed forces or their mobilization plans, and report very little on casualties.
At the end of February, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that 31,000 Ukrainian servicemen had died so far. However, this number does not include the soldiers declared missing, whose number is estimated at several tens of thousands. The number of wounded, which is usually a multiple of the number of dead in any given armed conflict, has never been made public.
The Ukrainian army is struggling to replenish its ranks after an almost three-year invasion, while the situation on the front is very dire and the Russian army has taken the initiative for about a year. Mobilization is a hotly contested topic, and the conscription system is considered unfair by many Ukrainians and is at the center of a number of corruption scandals, AFP points out.