“We would like to know if there is a point in the future when he will be demobilised and someone else will take his place. This is being hotly debated and there is no answer right now.”
She added that plans to lower the draft age for Ukrainian men will be “done by the end of March.”
On the war, Sovsun continued: “The 36-month [term limit] is still in play in a very specific way – we don’t particularly like the wording – that those who serve will have the right to demobilise after 36 months based on the decision of the commander-in-chief.
“Basically, if the decision is not taken it doesn’t happen. [We want it] to be automatic.”
“There are some units that have been on the front line for 24 months. That is extremely difficult and it’s inefficient. People need rest.
“People are extremely tired. [The war] has taken its toll on everybody, and I started thinking, how many years can people live like this?”
Ukraine’s former military Commander-in-Chief, Valery Zaluzhny, demanded an extra 500,000 soldiers in December. President Volodymyr Zelensky denied the request and later relieved Zaluzhny of his duties.
Tim Less, a lecturer at Cambridge University’s Centre for Geopolitics, told Al Jazeera that Zelensky is hoping that military aid from the US and Europe may mean more men won’t need to be conscripted.
He said: “What Zelensky is actually doing is trying to leverage more arms from the West, which he sees either as an alternative to mobilisation or a precondition for this while allowing his new commander-in-chief, Oleksandr Syrskii, to assess the situation on the ground.”
