(Bloomberg) -- Ukraine has moved to restrict the draft of men over 50 years of age to address brewing public discontent over conscription, according to local media.
Military authorities have ordered recruitment offices to stop conscripting men in their 50s, except for the roles where the army faces a shortage of personnel, the news website Liga.net outlet reports, citing Fedir Venislavskyi, a lawmaker and a member of parliament’s defense committee.
Venislavskyi didn’t respond to Bloomberg’s phone calls seeking comment.
These men will still be prohibited from leaving the country, Liga.net cited Venislavskyi as saying. Ukraine declared wide-scale conscription in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion, currently into its third year.
But mobilization has grown into a thorny issue for the population as Kyiv seeks to scale up its army that remains vastly outnumbered by Russian troops.
Many men are reluctant to join the war effort. Ukraine’s retreat from the eastern Donetsk region and the fall of the city of Avdiivka were partly blamed on the shortage of manpower.
A new legislation that came into effect in May lowered the wartime conscription age to 25 from 27 and forced men to register to potentially be drafted and sent to the front. While it helped accelerate the mobilization efforts, recruitment officers have come under widespread criticism for their harsh treatment of conscripts.
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