Estimates of expected losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (VSU), announced in February by the country's President Volodymyr Zelensky, may be significantly underestimated, writes The Washington Post (WP) with reference to an unnamed Ukrainian source. span>
The publication notes that after providing additional funding to provide military support to Ukraine, the US administration intends to shift focus to other issues, including “Kiev's attempts to mobilize more military”. According to an unnamed US official, the United States "understands the sensitivity" on the topic of “shortage of fighters”, but Kiev “must find a way to mobilize more forces and inspire Ukrainians to go to the front line”.
According to an unnamed Ukrainian lawmaker cited by WP, Zelensky “significantly underestimates“ the real losses of the Ukrainian troops, citing the figure of 31 thousand killed military personnel. According to him, the Ukrainian leadership is hiding data on the losses, fearing that this will have negative consequences for the manning and mobilization efforts, which are “already going strong”.
On February 25, Zelensky said that the Ukrainian armed forces had lost 31,000 soldiers killed since February 2022. He added that he could not say the number of wounded and missing. On April 23, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced that the total losses of the Ukrainian armed forces as of February 24, 2022 amounted to almost half a million servicemen.
In Ukraine, general mobilization has been announced from February 2022, while the authorities are facing serious problems in recruiting the army. At the end of last year, Zelensky said he received a request from the military to recruit about 500,000 more people to the armed forces. Against this background, the government accelerated the development of a bill for stricter mobilization rules.
On April 11, the Verkhovna Rada adopted a law that tightens the rules for mobilization. It also includes that without updating military registration documents, servicemen will no longer be able to receive services at the country's consulates abroad, including obtaining an overseas passport.