The plan for further mobilization must clearly substantiate proposals and provide answers to pressing issues of concern to servicemen. This was stated by President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy during the end-of-year press conference in Kyiv.
"All the requests from our army today must be in line with modern challenges and must find a response from the military leadership. This is very important," the Head of State said.
The President informed that the issue of mobilization was discussed at the meeting of the Staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief with the participation of Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valerii Zaluzhny and Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Serhiy Shaptala.
"They proposed to mobilize an additional 450-500 thousand people. This is a significant number. I told them I need more arguments to support this direction, because this is a matter of people first and foremost. Secondly, it is a matter of justice, defense capability and finances," Volodymyr Zelenskyy noted.
According to the Head of State, in addition to mobilization, the issue of rotation, leaves, assignments, and transfers to other military units needs to be resolved. Therefore, it should be a comprehensive plan. The President emphasized that the military leadership together with the Cabinet of Ministers should develop a relevant document that will be submitted to the Verkhovna Rada after consideration at the meeting of the Staff.
"If we are talking about additional mobilization forces, we must find demobilization processes, and this should be done in a substantive way, with specifics and with great respect for the warriors," Volodymyr Zelenskyy is convinced.
"I would really like our military leadership to realize all these challenges. We cannot lose the bravest, most powerful people and their morale. I am grateful to them for their resilience," he added.
In addition, according to the President, the mobilization of more than 450,000 servicemen will require additional UAH 500 billion in expenditures.
"As the President of Ukraine and as someone who devotes a lot of his time to finding various forms of financial support for Ukraine, I would like to have an answer from the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance: where will we get the money from?" Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.
He also called for the Ministry of Digital Transformation to be involved in working on the plan with the aim of digitizing a range of processes.
Answering journalists' questions about whether the President could agree on the possibility of mobilizing men under 27 and women, the Head of State said: "As for women, no. As for 25 years of age, if all the arguments are presented and I see that they need it today, I will agree to it."
