President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has signed the draft law "On Amendments to the Law of Ukraine 'On Military Duty and Military Service'", which reduces the mobilisation age from 27 to 25 years. This is stated on the website of the Verkhovna Rada.
MPs voted for it in the first reading as a basis and as a whole on 30 May 2023.
The bill's card states that on 2 April, the document was returned to the Verkhovna Rada with the President's signature.
As noted, if the maximum conscription age is reduced to 25 years, conscription commissions will have one to three years to implement the performance of military duty by Ukrainian citizens and call them up for regular military service.
At the same time, keeping citizens on the military register of conscripts under 27 and requiring them to come to territorial recruitment and social support centres every year to confirm their right to deferment from conscription and to undergo medical examinations leads to significant financial and material costs.
The President also signed the draft law on the electronic cabinet of persons liable for military service. This is evidenced by the card of the draft law No. 10062.
It provides for:
- Improving the register of conscripts, persons liable for military service and reservists, in particular, in terms of establishing interaction between the registers, using data on military registration, etc;
- introducing the possibility of creating and using a digital military registration document (certificate);
- Creation of a register of servicemen of the Armed Forces and the State Special Transport Service, which will provide online services to servicemen;
- creation of an e-services portal for servicemen and women liable for military service. For example, it will be possible to grant the status of a combatant online, offline and automatically if the necessary data is available in the system.
- In addition, the law strengthens cyber defence and the right to host their IT systems in NATO member states' military cloud storage facilities.