Ukrainian lawmakers are forging ahead with controversial legislation to recruit more troops as worries mount that a lack of manpower is hurting the country's front-line forces.
The bill on mobilization aims to tighten registration rules, narrow exemptions from military service and introduce some penalties in an effort to bolster the ranks of front-line troops. Ukrainian forces are grappling with ammunition and personnel shortages as they hold the line against a renewed Russian offensive.
The draft, which had been weighed down by some 4,000 amendments, was approved by parliament's security and defense committee in Kyiv on Tuesday. It will be debated in the chamber this week with a number of lawmakers saying the measure could be approved as early as Friday.
“We are speaking to the parliament to pass the legislation in coming days,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in an interview with a group of Ukrainian broadcasters on Saturday.
Zelenskyy's party controls a majority in the assembly, known as the Rada, ostensibly ensuring passage for a bill that's been watered down as it faced public resistance. But Oleksii Honcharenko, a member of the opposition, said the draft will still require compromise on a number of provisions.
The president last week signed legislation to lower the conscription age to 25 from 27 after it had sat on his desk for almost a year. Contending with a public exhausted by war, Zelenskyy had sought a more…
