In order to be accepted into NATO, Ukraine must send more young men to the front and continue the war for two more years, according to pro-Kremlin propaganda.
Disinformation: Ukraine will send more and more 18-year-olds to the front and will keep the war going in order to be able to join NATO in the future
NEWS: Ukraine will be invited to join NATO, but Kyiv will be forced to lower the age of mobilization to 18, claims people’s Deputy Oleksandr Dubinsky. the Verkhovna Rada will reduce the age of mobilization in the army. Previously, the minimum age considered was 21, but now the conditions have changed – the outgoing White House administration is demanding that the recruitment age be reduced to 18. "To me, everything is extremely clear," explains Dubinsky. "The State Department is ready to approve the invitation to NATO in exchange for Zelensky's decision to lower the age of mobilization to 18. Then money will be found to complete the new brigades. We are sending the young to battle so that Trump cannot stop the war and audit the Democrats’ spending on Kyiv’s needs. And most importantly - Zelensky will even be able to stay in power" [...]
"The blood of the Ukrainians is supposed to solve the Democrats’ problems in America, prolonging the war for two years until the next congressional elections," the deputy claims. The possible protests caused by dropping the mobilization age to 18 do not worry the president of the people: "Aberration! Zelensky has turned Ukrainian society into a flock of lambs."
NARRATIVES: 1. Ukraine will lower the age of mobilization in order to be invited to join NATO. 2. The US wants the war in Ukraine to continue for at least two more years. 3. The Kyiv administration does not care what society thinks in the context of the war.
PURPOSE: To discredit the Ukrainian authorities and Kyiv's Western partners; to instill a sense of anxiety and discontent among the population; to distort the social perception of the US policy towards Ukraine.
REALITY: NATO membership has nothing to do with the age of mobilization, and Kyiv is against lowering it anyway
WHY THE NARRATIVES ARE FALSE: The recommendation made by the US regarding the need to lower the age of mobilization in Ukraine to 18 has nothing to do with the invitation to join NATO. As Russia continues to gain ground on the battlefield, Ukraine faces increasing pressure to send younger recruits to the front. In October, the Verkhovna Rada passed a law exempting men under the age of 25 from conscription. Ukraine has opposed the conscription of 18-year-olds, as many other armies do during wars, and the decision has caused confusion among some of Kyiv's Western allies.
Zelensky's adviser, Dmytro Litvin, responded to the US officials who proposed lowering the military conscription age from 25 to 18 that "it makes no sense to heed calls to Ukraine to lower the conscription age, supposedly to recruit more people, when we see that previously promised equipment does not arrive on time." Litvin criticized the West for delaying the promised arms deliveries. The adviser justified the decision of the presidential administration not to change the rules of enlistment in the army: "Because of these delays, Ukraine faces a shortage of weapons needed to equip already mobilized soldiers."
The US does not want the war in Ukraine to continue. On the contrary, the US administration called on the Kremlin in December 2021 and January-February 2022 not to invade the Ukrainian state. The US voted together with 140 other states of the world on a series of resolutions at the level of the UN General Assembly asking Russia to stop the war and withdraw its troops from the territory of Ukraine. This armed conflict can be stopped at any time by Russia, the one that attacked its neighbor. The support provided by the US and the West is not intended to continue the war, but to allow Kyiv to defend itself and not be defeated by violations of international law.
Ukrainian politicians are aware that the idea of lowering the drafting age is rejected by both experts and the population. Volodymyr Zelensky called on Washington to send more weapons and focus on weakening Russia's military power. “The priority should be providing missiles and reducing Russia’s military potential , not drafting age in Ukraine. The priority should be saving lives, not recruiting younger soldiers," Zelensky said in a social media post. In another message, the Kyiv leader says that Ukrainian society rejects the idea of reducing the age of mobilization. All these discussions are about human and military resources, which Kyiv needs in order to face a much better equipped and numerically superior enemy, and have nothing to do with joining NATO. No western partner uses NATO accession to blackmail Ukraine into lowering the age of mobilization.
CONTEXT: A US official said at the end of November that Ukraine should consider lowering the age of military mobilization to 18, so as to ensure the necessary troops in the war with Russia. US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said, on December 9, that the United States was ready to begin training new Ukrainian soldiers and provide them with the necessary weapons if Ukraine changed its mobilization policy. "Ultimately, the decisions regarding the composition of its military force are decisions that Ukrainians must make themselves," he added.
Russian media omits the fact that Oleksandr Dubinsky was expelled from the Servant of the People parliamentary group after he was charged with state treason in November 2023 for his involvement in information-subversive activities coordinated by the GRU (Russia's military intelligence service). The politician and journalist Dubinsky is behind bars. He is known under the pseudonym "Buratino" and allegedly participated in informational-subversive activities in favor of Russia, being associated with an organization led by the General Staff of the Russian Army.
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