Zaluzhnyi distancing himself from mobilization bill, not confirming request for mobilization of additional 500,000 people

Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valerii Zaluzhnyi has commented on the bill of the Cabinet of Ministers on mobilization, noting that the Armed Forces of Ukraine do not have a legislative initiative, but form requests to the Ministry of Defense in order to continue fighting.

Zaluzhnyi said this on the air of the telethon, Ukrainian News Agency reports.

"Let's start with the fact that the military command did not make a single request for any numbers there and so on. The military command continues to perform the function of protecting its state, accordingly forms its requests for ammunition, weapons and human resources. This is done on an ongoing basis, and we do not do this in some kind of a separate format, a separate event for the Cabinet of Ministers or the Verkhovna Rada," he said.

Regarding the statement of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that Zaluzhnyi proposes to mobilize 450,000-500,000 people, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine noted that the General Staff brought the request for weapons, shells and people for 2024 to the Ministry of Defense, but refused to give the number of the request, emphasizing that this is a military secret.

"As for this figure - we formed this figure for the next year. It takes into account the coverage of the current lack of equipment that arose, the formation of new military units, as well as forecasting the losses that the Ukrainian army can incur during 2024," he said.

Regarding the legislative initiative of the Cabinet of Ministers, Zaluzhnyi stressed that the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine did not make any submissions of bills to the Cabinet of Ministers, because it is has no legislative initiative.

At the same time, he noted that the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine worked with the subject of the legislative initiative - the Ministry of Defense, forming the state policy in the field of defense, specialists of the General Staff worked in the working group on the bill on mobilization, first of all, they followed so that the mechanisms applied in military control directly to combat operations were not violated and that at the legislative level norms were not adopted that could interfere with the activities of the military command.

Zaluzhnyi noted that the Ministry of Defense submitted legislative initiatives to the Cabinet.

"Our position is quite simple: we need projectiles, we need weapons, we need people. All the rest are carried out by the relevant bodies that have the authority to do so," he stressed.

As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, on December 25, the Cabinet of Ministers introduced a bill on mobilization to the Rada, which in particular provides for lowering the minimum conscription age for mobilization from 27 years to 25 years, abolishing the exemption from mobilization for persons with a 3rd group disability, abolishing the postponement from mobilization for those receiving a second higher education.

On December 19, at a press conference, Zelenskyy said that Zaluzhnyi proposes to additionally mobilize 450,000-500,000 people, this will cost an additional UAH 500 billion.

On November 24, Zelenskyy ordered the preparation of comprehensive decisions on mobilization and demobilization.