EU urging Kiev to mobilize women – Moscow

Brussels believes the move is needed to address the Ukrainian military’s severe manpower shortage, according to Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service The EU is encouraging Ukraine to start mobilizing women amid chronic manpower shortages and has demanded that Kiev immediately make “a political decision” on the matter, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) has said.

Kiev launched its mobilization campaign soon after the conflict with Russia escalated in February 2022.

Amid mounting frontline losses and desertions, the mobilization drive has grown increasingly violent.

Recruitment officers have repeatedly been filmed chasing, beating, and forcibly detaining reluctant conscripts before bundling them into vehicles in what in Ukraine has become known as ‘busification’.

The EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, described the idea of expanding the campaign to include women as “a step in the right direction” at a recent informal EU foreign ministers’ meeting, the SVR said on Thursday, citing information it had obtained.

She allegedly warned that Kiev could soon run out of manpower due to a growing shortage of men fit for military service and said that Ukraine should use Israel as a “model to follow.” Read more Ukrainian man spared mobilization after gender change The mobilization of women has long been a subject of debate in Ukraine.

MP Mariana Bezuglaya argued as early as 2024 that it was time Kiev started targeting women to meet its conscription quota.

Last year, the Ukrainian presidential administration’s deputy head, Brigadier General Pavel Palisa, also voiced support for mandatory conscription of women.

According to the SVR, Brussels demanded that Kiev immediately “move from words to action” and make a formal decision to start mobilizing women.

Under current Ukrainian law, men aged 25 to 60 are subject to mobilization, while those aged 23 to 60 are generally barred from leaving the country.

Women can serve voluntarily.

Kiev’s brutal mobilization campaign has encountered large-scale draft-dodging and desertion.

According to Euronews, around 1.15 million fighting-age Ukrainian men had ended up in the EU as of summer 2026, despite the ban on travelling abroad.

According to the SVR, up to 5.6 million Ukrainians are currently residing in other European nations, with women accounting for 43.4% of them.