Ukrainian parliament approves army mobilization law

KIEV

Ukrainian lawmakers approved on April 11 an army mobilization bill to bolster troop numbers against Russia, a day after a clause allowing long-serving soldiers to return home from the front was scrapped.

The law is designed to facilitate army recruitment but has caused some anger in a nation exhausted by more than two years of battling Moscow's forces.

"The bill on mobilization was adopted as a whole," MP Yaroslav Zheleznyak said in a post on Telegram.

He said 283 of the parliament's 450 deputies had voted in favor of the legislation, which toughens punishments for draft dodgers.

The Ukrainian military has been weakened by a failed 2023 counter-offensive against Russia and by the blocking in the U.S. Congress of key military aid.

It is also believed to have suffered huge losses.

Earlier this month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky lowered the mobilization age from 27 to 25 because Kiev is short of soldiers to fight Russian forces.

And on April 10 parliament announced a popular clause on demobilizing soldiers who had been fighting for 36 months was being scrapped at the demand of the army.

Zelensky is still required to sign the mobilization law for it to take effect.

He took almost a year to sign a previous bill lowering the mobilization age after it was passed by parliament.

Meanwhile, Zelensky said yesterday that Russia fired more than 40 missiles and 40 drones at Ukraine overnight, again hitting the city of Kharkiv and targeting "critical infrastructure" throughout the country.

Kiev reported a "massive" attack on the country's major facilities, but said that so far nobody has been reported killed.

"Overnight, Russia fired more than 40 missiles and 40 drones at Ukraine," Zelensky said on X.

"Some missiles and 'Shahed' drones were successfully shot down. Unfortunately, only a part of them," he added.

"There was another vile missile attack on Kharkiv and the Kharkiv region," he said. The northeastern city has been pounded by Russian attacks, some deadly, in recent weeks.

Zelensky said infrastructure facilities were also targeted in Kiev, the cities of Zaporizhzhia and Odesa in the south, and the western city of Lviv, near the Polish border.

"Russian terrorists once again targeted critical infrastructure," he said.

Moscow has heavily attacked Ukraine's energy facilities over recent months, launching some of its biggest aerial strikes of the two-year war.

Zelensky called on Ukraine's Western partners not to "turn a blind eye" and to provide more air defense systems.