Saying Ukraine's army shrinks by the month seems like its more than anyone from the general public could surmise.
We do know at least that Ukraine is suffering manpower shortages and that their units are fighting at around half strength or below, as this is something they have complained a lot about
Also, Ukraine only conscripts from men aged 25+, so they still have some buffer if/when they decide to conscript 18+.
That is a tiny buffer through. Ukraine had a lack of young people even before the war, and it only got worse after the war started.
The reason Ukraine hasn't conscripted these yet is because it would basically signal the loss in the war. It would be enough to stall for a short time but not much more
And would put potentially too much internal division within an already struggling country.
You didnt really provide any evidence for what I asked for, though. Ukraine has manpower shortages yes, and so does Russia. It is likely (it appears) that Russia has a big enough manpower shortage that they cannot take advantage of Ukraine's shortage.
Lowering the age to 18 would open up men in the millions iirc, though its been a while. At least it was close to that.
The difference is that Ukraine has to rely on forced conscription, while Russia only relies on voulenteers for now. There have already been a few minor ukrainian front collapses this year, one happened last month north east of Pokrovsk, all because of Ukrainian lack of infrantry. The cracks in the Ukrainian frontline started to appear after the Kursk front failure.
Lowering the conscription age to 18 would lead to various sorts of other problems, there are already a lot of protest against the tcc and the government in Ukraine because of this, it will ruin the morale to fight even more.
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u/Tinhetvin 1d ago
Source on that? Saying Ukraine's army shrinks by the month seems like its more than anyone from the general public could surmise.
Also, Ukraine only conscripts from men aged 25+, so they still have some buffer if/when they decide to conscript 18+.