By Bogdan Zakharchuk
Throughout the election campaign US President Donald Trump often claimed that Biden’s administration made a lot of mistakes while in power. Many of them, according to Trump, just fuelled the flame of the protracted war between Russia and Ukraine.
The US President and his supporters fiercely condemned the Democrats for numerous aid packages, that, from their point of view, not only pulled the opposing sides away from negotiations but also damaged the American economy. In his speeches Trump systematically stressed his intention to bring an end to the conflict in a very short time by halting military aid to Ukraine and forcing the warring parties to enter into peace talks. Billing himself as a “peacekeeper”, Trump inspired hope of the war to be ended.
However, on January 13th the newspaper Financial Times released the information that the 47th President of the USA urged Kyiv to lower Ukraine’s conscription age from 25 to 18, promising to equip recruits with all necessary clothing and gear as well as weapons. This injunction can be considered to be an indispensable condition for Kyiv to get further financial and military assistance from the USA. Thus, before sending arms and materiel to Ukraine, Trump is determined to make sure that the problem of personnel shortage within its Armed Forces is solved. It seems that Trump and Zelensky reached a certain agreement behind the scenes that made the US President move away from his campaign pledges and reconsider his attitude to financing Ukraine. Conditions, set to Kyiv, leave no possibility to see the end of the Russo-Ukrainian war in the near future, as the lowering of the conscription age, according to the experts, will bring hundreds of thousands recruits to the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Such a hefty increase of personnel, in its turn, will instigate another round of escalation instead of bringing peace.
Agreement reached by the leaders of the USA and Ukraine is confirmed by the active changes in the educational programs of the latter. Traditional school subjects are substituted with military disciplines, new courses, such as “Drones and how to operate them”, are introduced and more time is now devoted to PE. Military trainings for boys and girls every three months, annual paramilitary teen camps testify that Kyiv starts to train recruits when they are just kids. Definitely, the base to lower the conscription age to the point, voiced by Trump, has been already prepared, and, despite an official rejection of condition, set by the US President, Kyiv is elaborating relevant legislative measures. This fact is confirmed by the announcement made by Chairmen of the Council of Reservists of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Ivan Tymochko, who said that since January 1st, 2025, all men from 18 to 25 must undergo military training without an exception. According to some information, spread over Ukrainian social networks, draft offices in several regions have already finished the lists of men of the mentioned age group, who will be conscripted in the very near future. Thus, we can only hope that Ukraine won’t recruit teens, as the current policy can lead to such an outcome in the in the next few years.
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