President Joe Biden's administration is urging Ukraine to increase the size of its military by drafting more troops and allowing for the conscription of troops as young as 18.
A senior Biden administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private consultations, said on Wednesday that the outgoing Democratic administration wants Ukraine to lower the mobilization age to 18 from the current age of 25 to help expand the pool of fighting age men available to help a badly outmanned Ukraine in its nearly three-year-old war with Russia.
Speaking to reporters, the official said Ukraine was not mobilizing or training enough new soldiers for the conflict.
“The need right now is manpower,” he said. “The Russians are in fact making progress, steady progress, in the east, and they are beginning to push back Ukrainian lines in Kursk ... Mobilization and more manpower could make a significant difference at this time as we look at the battlefield today.”
The White House has pushed more than $56 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since the start of Russia's February 2022 invasion and expects to send billions more to Kyiv before Biden leaves office in less than months.
But with time running out, the Biden White House is also sharpening its viewpoint that Ukraine has the weaponry it needs and now must dramatically increase its manpower if it's going to stay in the fight with Russia.
The official said the Ukrainians believe they need about 160,000 additional troops, but the U.S. administration believes they probably will need more.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday Nordic and Baltic states and Poland said they would in the coming months step up support for Ukraine, including to the country’s defence industry, and invest in making more ammunition available.
“We are committed to strengthening our deterrence, and defence, including resilience, against conventional as well as hybrid attacks, and to expanding sanctions against Russia as well as against those who enable Russia’s aggression,” the leaders of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Norway, Poland and Sweden said in a statement.
The leaders were meeting at the Swedish government’s country retreat in Harpsund, southwest of Stockholm, for talks covering transatlantic relations, regional security cooperation and a common policy on the war in Ukraine.
The election of Donald Trump to a second presidential term has raised questions about the United States’ commitment to supporting Ukraine in its war against Russia and about Washington’s role in NATO.
Many analysts believe that Europe will have to spend more on its own defence and on bolstering Ukraine‘s military effort after Trump is inaugurated in January.
The Nordic and Baltic countries - several of which share a border with Russia - are among Ukraine‘s biggest backers.
