Russia has finished drafting 150,000 conscripts into its military, its Defense Ministry said Monday, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned he needs more fighter jets and missile defense systems to stop the Kremlin’s renewed battlefront advance.
Zelenskyy, whose forces have scrambled to block the Russian offensive following a six-month delay in American aid, also said he wants to host another international peace summit.
Unlike the June peace summit in the Swiss city of Geneva, this time Zelenskyy invited Russia to attend. “I set a goal that in November we would have a fully ready plan,” he told a news conference in Kyiv. “I think that representatives of Russia should be at the second summit.”
Both countries have come up with different cease-fire plans although Russia’s is little more than a demand for Ukrainian surrender. Both have said each other’s vision is unacceptable.
Meanwhile, the future of Ukrainian military resistance was thrown further into question after former President Donald Trump picked as his running mate Sen. JD Vance, an Ohio Republican staunchly opposed to Washington’s support of Kyiv. Vance has argued that the United States should encourage Ukraine to make a peace deal with Russia, and that Kyiv should be prepared to cede land to its invader.
This will only deepen fears in Ukraine and Europe that a Trump victory at the presidential election in November will mean that the U.S. aid upon which Ukraine relies might be cut off or reduced.
Russia has suffered no such troubles over its military supply lines, ramping up production of key weapons such as cruise missiles despite Western sanctions.
Last week, NATO called on China “to cease all material and political support to Russia’s war effort,” including all “transfer of dual-use materials,” eliciting an angry response from Beijing which rejected the accusation. The U.S. and South Korea say North Korea has already provided Russia with millions of rounds of ammunition and dozens of ballistic missiles for use in Ukraine.
Meanwhile, in Moscow on Monday, the Russian Defense Ministry announced it had completed its spring draft of 150,000 recruits who had been sent into the armed forces. As per Russian law, these conscripts cannot legally be sent into the Ukraine, and should instead be sent to roles inside Russia. But this could free up other troops for front-line service.
Putin signed this decree March 31. All men in Russia over the age of 18 are required to do a year’s military service or equivalent training during higher education. From January, the maximum age that men could be drafted was raised from 27 to 30.
This spring conscription follows Putin’s order in September calling up 130,000 people for the autumn campaign.
The churn of the Russian war machine has pushed Zelenskyy to continue in his bid to drum up support. Just back from the NATO summit in Washington, he told a news conference in Kyiv that his country needs more F-16 warplanes than the number already pledged, as well as 25 extra Patriot missile defense systems.
The Ukrainian president said his forces had “lost the initiative” against Russia during a six-month delay in which Republicans in Congress held up tens of billions of dollars in aid. That was finally passed in April, and since then Ukraine has been scrambling to halt Russia’s advance.
The U.S. and other NATO allies promised last week to provide Ukraine with dozens of air defense systems, including at least four of the sophisticated and expensive Patriot systems.
F-16 warplanes pledged by Western countries are due to arrive in Ukraine in two waves: the first batch this summer, and the second by the end of the year, Zelenskyy said.
Zelenskyy said he was “not afraid” of the prospect of Trump becoming elected, despite his mixed messages on whether the former Republican president would continue American military support for Kyiv. Those questions will only intensify with Trump’s pick of Vance, who has repeatedly voiced his objection to sending money to the Eastern European nation.
“At this point, we are actively endangering our national security by focusing on Ukraine to the exclusion of other priorities,” Vance posted on X last month. “At the same time that world leaders play armchair general with the Ukraine conflict, their own societies are decaying,” he wrote in another message posted in February.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed.
