Weighed down by over 4,000 amendments, the legislation — which came into effect on May 18 — also narrows exemptions from military service and makes it harder to dodge the draft. It was meant to contain a provision limiting the time conscripts serve to three years, in order to appease their families, but that was spiked at the behest of military commander Oleksandr Syrskyi.
The language around the war is offputting both to young people and to family members who might otherwise let them fight, according to Melnyk, the analyst. The language of death for the sake of Ukraine is the “wrong approach”, he said. “Nobody wants to send the gene pool to destruction.”