The U.S. is willing to (proxy-)fight Russia down to the last Ukrainian.
White House presses Ukraine to lower draft age to meet manpower needs against Russia
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden’s administration is urging Ukraine to quickly increase the size of its military by drafting more troops and revamping its mobilization laws to allow for the conscription of those as young as 18.
A senior Biden administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private consultations, said Wednesday that the outgoing Democratic administration wants Ukraine to lower the mobilization age to 18 from the current age of 25 to expand the pool of fighting-age men available to help a badly outnumbered Ukraine in its nearly three-year-old war with Russia.
The official said “the pure math” of Ukraine’s situation now is that it needs more troops in the fight.
“Pure math” also says that following the advice order from Washington will guarantee that there will be no future Ukrainians left to fight for:
I have pointed out six month ago that there are hardly a significant number of 18 to 25 year old left in Ukraine. If that cohort gets further diminished by senseless dying Ukraine’s future will be even more bleak than it is now. Even the British nuts who earlier proposed to draft 18 year old Ukrainians have learned to shut up about it.
The graphic below, taken from Wikipedia’s Demographics of Ukraine, presumes that Ukraine has a population of some 40 million:
But the real population number in the areas under control of the Ukrainian government is by now only about 20 million, half of which are people of retirement age. Drafting the few men of age 18 to 25 will not help to win the war but will, over time, further depopulate Ukraine.
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Even without sacrificing its youth Ukraine’s demographic outlook is already bad:
Ukraine’s total fertility rate – the average number of babies per woman of child-bearing age – is currently 0.7, the lowest in the world. The country’s demographics have been further affected by a mass exodus to the West and significant casualties on the battlefield, to the point where the very survival of the nation is in question, a government-funded think tank told The Times earlier this year.
“Male life expectancy has decreased from 66-67 before the war to 57-58,” said Ella Libanova, head of the Institute for Demography and Social Studies at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. Only four African countries – Chad, Nigeria, Lesotho and the Central African Republic – have lower life expectancies.
During the war on Vietnam the U.S. completely destroyed the town of Ben Tre:
“It became necessary to destroy the town to save it,” a U.S. major said Wednesday.
Now the U.S. is likewise destroying the people of Ukraine to “save them” from further existence.
Ukrainian officials have for now rejected U.S. demands to lower the mobilization age:
“We are now in the situation when we need more equipment to arm all the people that have already been mobilized, and we think the first priority is to send quicker, faster military aid,” Heorhii Tykhyi, a spokesman for Ukraine’s foreign ministry, told reporters in Kyiv.
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His statement echoed a comment on Wednesday from Ukrainian presidential adviser Dmytro Lytvyn, who criticized what he said was sluggish military aid.“Ukraine cannot be expected to compensate for delays in logistics or hesitation in support with the youth of our men on the frontline,” Lytvyn wrote on X.
Politicians in Ukraine, like elsewhere, are bribable. With a significant amount of additional cash the Zelenzki regime can be induced to follow whatever wishes Washington might have.
Mobilizing the youth may though be the last decision the former president of Ukraine will make.