Trump's incoming NSA floats push for Ukraine to lower conscription age

By María Paula Mijares Torres

A top aide in President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration signaled that Ukraine will be asked to lower the conscription age to strengthen its battlefield position ahead of any settlement with Russia.

Michael Waltz, a former Army Green Beret and combat veteran of Afghanistan whom Trump tapped as his White House national security adviser, suggested the expanded draft-age eligibility would help Ukraine overcome a shortage of troops. Ukraine has persistently struggled with manpower while fighting the full-scale invasion begun by Vladimir Putin’s Russia almost three years ago.

“One of the things that we’ll be asking of the Ukrainians is — they have real manpower issues,” Waltz said Sunday on ABC’s This Week. “Their draft age right now is 26 years old, not 18. I don’t think a lot of people realize that they could generate hundreds of thousands of new soldiers.”

Ukraine lowered the wartime conscription age to 25 from 27 as of last May. While that appears to contradict the age cited by Waltz, his broader point was clear.

“It’s about seeing the frontlines stabilized, so that we can enter into some type of deal,” he said.

President Joe Biden’s administration also has signaled it wants Ukraine to lower the conscription age to increase its manpower on the battlefield.

For his part, Trump has said he wants to bring about an end to Russia’s war on Ukraine even before he takes office for his second presidential term on Jan. 20, raising concern that an armistice would be favorable to Russia.

At the same time, he vowed in December to use US support for Ukraine as leverage against Russia to negotiate an end to the war.

On Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said there hadn’t been any substantive preparation yet for talks between Trump and Putin, the Interfax news agency reported. Offers to host any such meeting between the two leaders by other countries are only hypothetical, he said.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy last week called on Ukraine’s allies not to “drop the ball now” and urged continued support for its war effort against Ukraine during a meeting of defense ministers in Germany, including US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

Last week, Biden — days before leaving office — announced another $500 million in US military assistance to Ukraine and imposed the most sweeping and aggressive sanctions yet on Russia’s oil trade.