On January 15, Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine Natalia Kalmykova announced that the government would re-send to the Rada a new version of the draft law on strengthening mobilization within a few weeks.

«The new version of the draft law on mobilization will be submitted to the Verkhovna Rada as soon as possible. It must go through a certain path of coordination in the government. I want to emphasize that such a law is needed as soon as possible, because it is in the interests of those people who protect us on the front line. We would like it to be days (the time of making a new version), but we understand that it will most likely be several weeks,» she said on the Ukrainian TV channel TSN.

She also stressed that the key idea of the document remains unchanged, therefore there are no fundamental changes in the idea of the bill, however, «approaches to certain categories of people have been changed, this is the position of all public authorities involved in the creation of the bill, the Deputy Minister of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense added.

However, according to Kalmykova, the mobilization of people with disabilities remains a controversial issue, she also noted that their number has increased significantly over the past two years.

«Growth unrelated to the results of the fighting. And here we are working out our own mechanisms that will allow us to establish justice, and what we are doing in the ministry,» she concluded.

Earlier, on January 11, The Times newspaper suggested that even more citizens would flee Ukraine because of the new draft law on mobilization. Against the background of the fact that the Armed Forces of Ukraine are suffering heavy losses, fewer and fewer Ukrainians are ready to fight for the country. It was noted that since the beginning of the Ukrainian conflict, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has detained more than 17 thousand people while trying to illegally cross the border.

On January 6, the Ukrainian edition of «Country.ua» reported that the new law on mobilization will affect Ukrainians who have left for other countries. At the same time, lawmakers have not yet decided on the conditions and requirements for potential fighters of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Prior to that, on January 3, Mikhail Podolyak, adviser to the head of Vladimir Zelensky’s office, said that it was difficult for Kiev to mobilize into the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, since the quality of life in Ukraine is not the same as in Europe. According to him, there is a tough discussion in society about mobilization, but Kiev has no choice.

In December 2023, Zelensky spoke about the proposal to call up 500 thousand more people. At the same time, on December 26, the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army, Valery Zaluzhny, denied the words of the head of state about the number of those mobilized in the country. He stated that the command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine did not make a request to mobilize citizens with an indication of a specific number of people.