WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden’s administration is urging Ukraine to quickly increase the size of its military by drafting more troops and revamping its mobilization laws to allow for the conscription of troops as young as 18.
A senior Biden administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private consultations, said Wednesday that the outgoing Democratic administration wants Ukraine to lower the mobilization age to 18 from the current age of 25 to help expand the pool of fighting-age men available to help a badly outnumbered Ukraine in its nearly three-year-old war with Russia.
The official said “the pure math” of Ukraine’s situation now is that it needs more troops in the fight.
The White House has pushed more than $56 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since the start of Russia’s February 2022 invasion and expects to send billions more to Kyiv before Biden leaves office in less than months.
But with time running out, the Biden White House is also sharpening its viewpoint that Ukraine has the weaponry it needs and now must dramatically increase its troop levels if it’s going to stay in the fight with Russia.
The official said the Ukrainians believe they need about 160,000 additional troops, but the US administration believes they probably will need more than that.
More than 1 million Ukrainians are now in uniform, including National Guard and other units.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has also been hearing concerns from allies in other Western capitals that Ukraine has a troop level problem and not an arms problem, according to European officials who requested anonymity to discuss the sensitive diplomatic conversations.
The European allies have also stressed that the lack of depth means that it may soon become untenable for Ukraine to continue to operate in Russia’s Kursk border region that Ukraine seized this year. The situation in Kursk has become further complicated by the arrival of thousands of North Korean troops who have come to help Moscow try to claw back the land.
The stepped-up push on Ukraine to strengthen its fighting ranks also comes as Ukraine braces for President-elect Donald Trump to take office on Jan. 20. The Republican said he would bring about a swift end to the war and has raised uncertainty about whether his administration would continue the vital US military support for Ukraine.
“There are no easy answers to Ukraine’s serious manpower shortage, but lowering the draft age would help,” said Bradley Bowman, senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. “These are obviously difficult decisions for a government and society that has already endured so much due to Russia’s invasion.”
Ukraine has taken steps to broaden the pool of draft-eligible men, but the efforts have only scratched the surface against a much larger Russian military.
In April, Ukraine’s parliament passed a series of laws, including lowering its draft-eligible age for men from 27 to 25, aimed at broadening the universe of men who could be called on to join the grinding war.
Those laws also did away with some draft exemptions and created an online registry for recruits. They were expected to add about 50,000 troops, far short of what Zelensky said at the time was needed.
Zelensky has consistently stated that he has no plans to lower the mobilization age. A senior Ukrainian official, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, said Ukraine does not have enough equipment to match the scale of its ongoing mobilization efforts.
The official said Ukrainian officials see the push to the lower the draft age as part of an effort by some Western partners to deflect attention from their own delays in providing equipment or belated decisions. The official cited as an example the delay in giving Ukraine permission to use longer-range weapons to strike deep into Russian territory.
The Ukrainians do not see lowering the draft age to recruit more soldiers as a substitute for countering Russia’s advantage in equipment and weaponry, the official said.
Conscription has been a sensitive matter in Ukraine throughout the war. Russia’s own problems with adequate troop levels and planning early in the war prevented Moscow from taking full advantage of its edge. But the tide has shifted and the US says the Ukrainian shortage can no longer be overlooked.
Some Ukrainians have expressed worry that further lowering the minimum conscription age and taking more young adults out of the workforce could backfire by further harming the war-ravaged economy.
The senior Biden administration official added that the administration believes that Ukraine can also optimize its current force by more aggressively dealing with soldiers who desert or go absent without leave.
White House pressing Ukraine to draft 18-year-olds so they have enough troops to battle Russia
https://arab.news/rhs9e
White House pressing Ukraine to draft 18-year-olds so they have enough troops to battle Russia
- The official said “the pure math” of Ukraine’s situation now is that it needs more troops in the fight
- The Ukrainians believe they need about 160,000 additional troops, but the US administration believes they probably will need more than that
UN seeks nearly $1 billion in aid for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh
- UN and its more than 100 partners launching a 2025-26 Joint Response Plan for the Rohingya crisis
- Around a million members of the persecuted and mostly Muslim minority live in squalid relief camps in Bangladesh
The United Nations said that it and more than 100 partners were launching a 2025-26 Joint Response Plan for the Rohingya crisis, amid “dwindling financial resources and competing global crises.”
The appeal, it said in a statement, “seeks $934.5 million in its first year to reach some 1.48 million people including Rohingya refugees and host communities.”
Around a million members of the persecuted and mostly Muslim minority live in squalid relief camps in Bangladesh, most of whom arrived after fleeing the 2017 military crackdown in neighboring Myanmar.
“In its eighth year, the Rohingya humanitarian crisis remains largely out of the international spotlight, but needs remain urgent,” Monday’s statement said.
It stressed that “any funding shortfalls in critical areas, including reductions to food assistance, cooking fuel or basic shelter, will have dire consequences for this highly vulnerable population.”
It could, it added, “force many to resort to desperate measures, such as embarking on dangerous boat journeys to seek safety.”
The UN said that more than half of the refugee population in the camps are women and girls, “who face a higher risk of gender-based violence and exploitation.”
And it highlighted that a third of the refugees are aged between 10 and 24, warning that “without access to formal education, adequate skills building and self- reliance opportunities, their futures remain on hold.”
“Until the situation in Myanmar’s Rakhine State is peaceful and conducive to returning safely and voluntarily, the international community must continue to fund life-saving assistance to refugees in the camps.”
China says it has not received any asylum application from Philippines’ Duterte
- Philippines’ former President Rodrigo Duterte’s trip to Hong Kong was for his personal holidays
BEIJING: China has not received any application for asylum from Philippines’ former President Rodrigo Duterte and his family, a foreign ministry spokesperson said on Monday.
Duterte’s trip to Hong Kong was for his personal holidays, ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun told a regular press conference.
The former president was arrested on March 11 at Manila’s main airport on his arrival from Hong Kong at the request of the International Criminal Court (ICC) as part of its probe into a “war on drugs” that defined his presidency.
UK’s Heathrow defends decision to shut airport amid blame game
- Airport’s 18-hour closure cost airlines tens of millions of pounds and stranded thousands of passengers
- Both National Grid and Heathrow agreed that the failure of the transformer was an unprecedented event
LONDON: Britain’s Heathrow defended its decision to shut down operations at Europe’s busiest airport last Friday as the blame game intensified over an 18-hour closure which cost airlines tens of millions of pounds and stranded thousands of passengers.
As questions mounted over how such a critical part of Britain’s infrastructure could fail and whether all Heathrow’s four terminals needed to shut, both National Grid and Heathrow agreed that the failure of the transformer was an unprecedented event.
But the airport was forced to defend its closure after the boss of National Grid told the Financial Times that the electricity transmission network remained capable of providing power to the airport throughout the crisis.
Heathrow said the fire at a nearby substation late on Thursday interrupted its operations, forcing it to shut while it reconfigured systems and switched to power from an alternative substation.
“Hundreds of critical systems across the airport were required to be safely powered down and then safely and systematically rebooted,” a Heathrow spokesperson said.
“Given Heathrow’s size and operational complexity, safely restarting operations after a disruption of this magnitude was a significant challenge.”
John Pettigrew, the CEO of National Grid, said there were two other substations able to provide power to Heathrow, showing that the grid was resilient.
“Two substations were always available for the distribution network companies and Heathrow to take power,” he told the FT.
While airlines such as British Airways, the worse affected, add up the bill for the closure, the government and Heathrow have both commissioned reviews into what happened.
“It’s really important that we do learn the lessons from this, and that’s why I think those two reviews...are going to be really critical,” Transport Minister Heidi Alexander told Sky News on Monday.
Asked on LBC Radio about whether she had confidence in Heathrow’s CEO Thomas Woldbye, Alexander said she wanted to see the results of the reviews.
Greenland leaders lambast US delegation trip as Trump talks of takeover
- The delegation will visit an American military base and watch a dogsled race
- Delegation will be led by Usha Vance, wife of Vice President JD Vance
COPENHAGEN/WASHINGTON: Greenlandic leaders criticized an upcoming trip by a high-profile American delegation to the semi-autonomous Danish territory that President Donald Trump has suggested the US should annex.
The delegation, which will visit an American military base and watch a dogsled race, will be led by Usha Vance, wife of Vice President JD Vance, and include White House national security adviser Mike Waltz and Energy Secretary Chris Wright.
Greenland’s outgoing prime minister Mute Egede called this week’s visit a “provocation” and said his caretaker government would not meet with the delegation.
“Until recently, we could trust the Americans, who were our allies and friends, and with whom we enjoyed working closely,” Egede told local newspaper Sermitsiaq. “But that time is over.”
The Greenlandic government, Naalakkersuisut, is currently in a caretaker period after a March 11 general election won by the Democrats, a pro-business party that favors a slow approach to independence from Denmark.
Jens-Frederik Nielsen, leader of the Democrats, called for political unity and said the visit by the US delegation during coalition talks and with municipal elections due next week, “once again shows a lack of respect for the Greenlandic people.”
Waltz and Wright plan to visit the Pituffik space base, the US military base in Greenland. The White House said they will get briefings from US service members there.
They will then join Vance to visit historical sites and attend the national dogsled race.
Brian Hughes, spokesman for the White House National Security Council, said the US team is “confident that this visit presents an opportunity to build on partnerships that respects Greenland’s self-determination and advances economic cooperation.”
“This is a visit to learn about Greenland, its culture, history, and people and to attend a dogsled race the United States is proud to sponsor, plain and simple,” Hughes said.
Trump has made US annexation of Greenland a major talking point since taking office for a second time on January 20. Greenland’s strategic location and rich mineral resources could benefit the US It lies along the shortest route from Europe to North America, vital for the US ballistic missile warning system.
The governments of both Greenland and Denmark have voiced opposition to such a move.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said in a written comment reacting to news of the visit that “this is something we take seriously.” She said Denmark wants to cooperate with the US, but it should be cooperation based on “the fundamental rules of sovereignty.”
She added that dialogue with the US regarding Greenland would take place in close coordination with the Danish government and the future Greenlandic government.
WHO calls for immediate action as report shows 10% rise in child TB infections in European region
- WHO’s European region reported more than 7,500 cases among children under 15 years of age in 2023
- Children under 15 years of age made up 4.3 percent of all TB cases in the European Union
Tuberculosis (TB) infections among children in the European region rose 10 percent in 2023, indicating ongoing transmission and the need for immediate public health measures to control the spread, the World Health Organization said on Monday.
WHO’s European region, which comprises 53 countries in Europe and Central Asia, reported more than 7,500 cases among children under 15 years of age in 2023, an increase of over 650 cases compared to 2022.
“The worrying rise in children with TB serves as a reminder that progress against this preventable and curable disease remains fragile,” said Hans Henri Kluge, WHO’s Regional Director for Europe.
Askar Yedilbayev, regional TB adviser for WHO’s European region, said in an interview that a rise in overall cases might indicate improved diagnoses. However, it could also result from increased cross-border movement due to the Russia-Ukraine war, the two countries with the highest disease burden in the region.
Children under 15 years of age made up 4.3 percent of all TB cases in the European Union, a joint report by the WHO and the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control showed.
This shows an increase in cases in this age group for the third consecutive year, which Yedilbayev said was a “worrisome scenario.”
WHO has previously warned that funding cuts from global donors will undo progress in controlling TB infections across low- and middle-income countries. These cuts can hurt TB programs in non-EU countries, fueling a rise of hard-to-treat strains, the agency said.
Several local, on-ground workforces have been hurt from the funding cuts, and the supply of diagnostics and treatments remains at risk, said Yedilbayev.
TB, among the top 10 causes of death worldwide, is a potentially fatal bacterial infection that mainly affects the lungs and spreads through coughing or sneezing.
