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Editor's note: this article was updated to reflect incoming U.S. National Security Advisor Mike Waltz's comments on the topic.
When looking at Ukraine’s Armed Forces, there is one thing that stands out — it is made up predominantly of older men.
Ukraine has never publicly released information about the age of its troops, but the average age is reportedly around 43 years old. Exact figures on the size of Ukraine’s armed forces are also not publicly known, with estimates ranging from the hundreds of thousands to around 1 million.
Time journalist Simon Shuster, who published a book profiling President Volodymyr Zelensky in January 2024, quoted one of Zelensky’s aides who was concerned about the age of Ukrainian troops.
“They’re grown men now, and they aren’t that healthy to begin with,” the unnamed aide told Shuster. “This is Ukraine. Not Scandinavia.”
With some exceptions, Ukrainian men aged 18 to 60 are not allowed to leave the country during martial law, but only men over 25 are eligible for the draft. Until earlier this year, the minimum draft age was 27.
Despite lowering the draft age to 25, news emerged in mid-October that U.S. lawmakers were pressuring Kyiv to further lower the draft age. Presidential Office advisor Serhii Leshchenko wrote on X that “politicians from both parties” were pushing Ukraine to start mobilizing its 18-25-year-olds.
The unnamed U.S. lawmakers reportedly cited the fact that America drafted men aged 18-26 during the Vietnam War, when some 2.2 million U.S. soldiers were conscripted to fight through the selective service process. The average age of an American soldier in Vietnam was around 22 years old.
The conscription of young men to fight in Vietnam was a major catalyst of the anti-war movement, drawing hundreds of thousands to protest and an estimated 30,000 men to emigrate to avoid the draft.
Active conscription ended in the U.S. in 1973. In more recent wars, American soldiers were statistically older, with the average age of an American soldier in the Gulf War around 27 years old. Data from 2010 shows the average age of an American soldier deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan was 33.4 years old.
Zelensky has so far refused to budge on changing the conscription age and has instead continued to press for the delivery of more U.S. military aid, arguing that there is a lack of equipment for existing troops.
The Associated Press reported at the end of November that the Biden administration is still pushing for Ukraine’s draft age to be lowered. “The pure math of Ukraine’s situation now is that it needs more troops in the fight,” AP quoted an unnamed senior Biden administration official.
The outgoing Biden administration's belief that Ukraine should lower its conscription age is shared by President-elect Donald Trump's team. Trump's incoming national security advisor Mike Waltz said on Jan. 12 that lowering the age benchmark could help "generate hundreds of thousands of new soldiers."
Ukraine’s draft age of 25
Until April 2024, Ukrainian men only became eligible for conscription at 27. Ukraine’s draft age was lowered to 25 in April when Ukraine updated several laws on mobilization to ramp up the number of available troops amid Russia's ongoing war.
The laws simplified the process for identifying eligible conscripts, introduced additional penalties for those dodging the draft, and lowered the minimum age of compulsory military service from 27 to 25.
There are no official figures for the number of men who have escaped mobilization abroad, but over 20,000 have reportedly illegally left Ukraine. Law enforcement agencies have uncovered around 600 criminal networks that help evade military service by aiding them in fleeing abroad.
Despite reports, Kyiv has said it does not have concrete plans to forcibly bring back military-aged men who are in the EU.
In addition to men, women aged 18 to 60 with a medical or pharmaceutical education have been required to be on the military register since 1992 but are still allowed to leave the country.
Other men are dodging the draft in Ukraine by staying away from official employment and keeping a low profile to avoid being noticed by draft officers. Exact estimates of how many men are avoiding the draft internally are impossible to know.
After signing the law lowering the age of military service, President Zelensky said that Ukraine’s military needs younger men because they are physically fitter than older men and can master technology used on the battlefield faster.
"This is a request from the military command in response to the specific needs of the Ukrainian Armed Forces," Zelensky said in an interview with French YouTuber Hugo Travers.
"With all due respect to our fighters, there's a difference between a 25-year-old combatant and a 50-year-old one."
Younger fighters can also master the different technologies used on the battlefield, Zelensky said. "This is a modern type of war," especially in terms of technologies such as aerial and maritime drones and cybersecurity.
"The new generation masters new technologies much more rapidly," Zelensky said.
Lack of equipment
Ukraine is unlikely to lower the age further. One argument Kyiv has cited is that its armed forces already suffer from a lack of equipment, a situation made worse by delays in military aid from partners like the U.S.
“It doesn't make sense to see calls for Ukraine to lower the mobilization age, presumably in order to draft more people, when we can see that previously announced equipment is not arriving on time,” Dmytro Lytvyn, Zelensky's communications adviser, wrote on X on Nov. 27.
“Because of these delays, Ukraine lacks weapons to equip already mobilized soldiers.”
Zelensky repeated this argument in an interview with Sky News on Nov. 29, when he said that Ukraine will "never have enough resources” if the West doesn't provide enough aid.
"They speak about mobilization, but the real problem (is) with 10 brigades which our partners didn't equip."
Western allies provided enough aid to fully equip only 2.5 out of the 10 Ukrainian brigades that Ukraine had requested support for, Zelensky said.
U.S. State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller said during a meeting with journalists on Dec. 9 that the U.S. was ready to take over the training of new Ukrainian soldiers and provide them with the necessary weapons if Ukraine changes its mobilization policy.
“Ultimately, the decisions about the composition of its military force are those are decisions that the Ukrainians have to make for themselves,” Miller said.
Later on Dec. 9, Zelensky wrote on social media that Ukraine will not use "the youth of soldiers" to make up for its gaps in military equipment and training.
“The priority should be providing missiles and lowering Russia's military potential, not Ukraine's draft age. The goal should be to preserve as many lives as possible, not to preserve weapons in storage."
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Ukraine’s demographic crisis
Regardless of training or equipment, one reason why Ukraine’s draft age is not 18 likely relates to concerns about the country’s demography.
“If you have a look at Ukraine's demographic tree, it makes perfect sense,” retired Australian Major General Mick Ryan told the Kyiv Independent.
Like other countries that gained independence after the fall of the Soviet Union, Ukraine “saw a fairly significant drop-off in birth rates, and that's now manifesting as a smaller population of people under 30 than a lot of other countries, say, in Europe or the U.S. or Australia.”
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has exacerbated Ukraine’s serious demographic crisis. Ukraine's population has declined by over 10 million since Russia first invaded in 2014 and fell to an estimated 37 million by January 2024.
Ukraine has the lowest birthrate in Europe and an increasingly aged population, with 30% of the population of retirement age.
From Ukraine’s perspective, “we understand we need young men to fight, but we also need young men to have kids,” Ryan said.
“This is kind of a pragmatic balance that the Ukrainians are trying to achieve, and it's the kind of dilemma that no country would really want to have to resolve because there's probably no resolving it.”
However, the U.S. is “probably using a harsher calculus,” Ryan said. “They're probably coming from the perspective of ‘if you don't win the war, your demography won't matter.’”
“There just is no single or simple solution to this. Every potential solution involves trade-offs and every potential solution will have political, human, and societal impacts.”
Unpopular policy
The lowering of the draft age appears to be an unpopular sentiment in Ukraine, even among those already serving in the military.
Maria Berlinska, a Ukrainian activist and veteran, spoke out against the pressure from Ukraine’s partners to lower the draft age, writing on Facebook that she was “categorically against it.”
“Sending yesterday's schoolchildren to the front who have not yet seen life is unreasonable and dishonest,” Berlinska argued.
Her thoughts were echoed by 43-year-old Ukrainian soldier and writer Artem Chapeye, who wrote on Facebook on Dec. 10 that men under 25 “have not yet lived.”
“The most absurdity is noticeable in the U.S., where you can't legally drink until 21, but you could be taken to war,” Chekh said.
In her post, Berlinska argued that Ukraine should receive manpower from abroad, rather than asking more Ukrainian youths to fight.
“We are now holding back the invasion of the Axis of Evil countries, we are keeping security for all of Europe, for many NATO countries, with a shield. Therefore, it is time for their armies to get involved, it is time to send their people here.”
“Do you want our children to fight? Ok, no problem, just together with your children.”
Katya Denisova and Chris York contributed to this report.
