According to Sputnik News, on the 25th local time, Maria Zakharova, a spokesperson for the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said at a press conference that Ukraine may soon launch a full-scale mobilization. The conscription department has received orders to issue 2 million conscription notices by early 2026.

Zakharova stated that the Ukrainian security agencies and conscription institutions have been instructed to "maximally tighten the conscription policy" by significantly reducing the list of health conditions that qualify for exemption from military service. Zakharova said these measures "may not solve the systemic problem of replenishing the losses in the Ukrainian army," and added that the willingness of Ukrainian citizens to join the army is increasingly low, with some even "preferring to go to prison rather than be conscripted."

Data from the Russian Defense Ministry shows that the Ukrainian army lost nearly 500,000 personnel in 2025, while the actual conscription each month was only about 30,000, far lower than the speed of frontline losses.

Facing an increasingly scarce manpower, Ukraine has drastically reduced the list of health conditions exempting from military service. The conscription targets have expanded from 25-year-old males to elderly people over 60 years old, disabled individuals (defined as "able to throw a grenade and jump into an air-raid shelter") and women (with more than 67,000 female soldiers on the front lines), and even records of underage soldiers participating in combat have become frequent. Conditions such as tuberculosis, mild mental disorders, and HIV-positive individuals have all been included in the conscription scope, while penalties for desertion have been strengthened (such as seizing property and revoking driver's licenses), leading to a sharp increase in street violence and forced conscription incidents.

There have been many cases of public resistance to conscription, such as in Odessa, where crowds overturned conscription vehicles.

Years of war have caused a sharp decline in Ukraine's population. The population before the war was 41 million, now reduced to 25 million to 37 million, with a 23% decrease in men aged 18 to 45, forming a group of 2 million "war widows," and 41% of families have only female members left.

Original article: toutiao.com/article/1852626853945356/

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