Because that’s what their constitution says. https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/ukraines-presidential...
> routinely force unwilling conscripts into vans
Can you clarify what you understand conscription to be?
2. There's a lot of domestic political/information suppression in Ukraine but I consider this somewhat normal for a nation in a pretty existential conflict.
3. The Ukrainian military is 70-80% conscripts, increasingly of the "forcibly mobilized" variety (look up "TCC busification" for examples), with almost all military-age males banned from leaving the country. Dudes are getting beaten up, stuffed into vans, and sent to trenches to eat Russian artillery and FABs (air-to-ground bombs)....against their will. I think that definitely counts as suppression.
Why is that unthinkable? I can understand people in the US being unable to process such a scenario, but here in Europe, there's not a single nation that wasn't off the map for some time.
I know why Ukrainians don't want that, but the demographic costs of tens to hundreds of thousands of "military age men" dying are so huge that any plausible alternative should be considered, even if it's very unpleasant.
Because it’s unthinkably stupid.
> I know why Ukrainians don't want that, but the demographic costs of tens to hundreds of thousands of "military age men" dying are so huge that any plausible alternative should be considered, even if it's very unpleasant.
And you imagine they won’t die in your guerrilla war? Or the next invasion after an emboldened Russia regroups?
Every country with conscription will do this if you refuse to show up.
> Both the west and the east have been pressuring them to hold elections to no avail.
Their own constitution and laws forbids it during martial law.
“Both Putin and Trump want Zelensky to violate the Ukrainian Constitution” is not the grand slam take you imagine it to be.
Was that MP a draft dodger? The issue isn't them picking draft dodgers, it's them picking up anybody that looks like they might be a draft dodger and the tactics they employ to do it.
They have long lost the ability to claim that any of their actions are in good faith.
...we are? Totally insufficiently. And immaterially, now [1]. But we're still providing intelligence support.
[1] https://apnews.com/article/ukraine-america-stockpiles-army-t...
Russia is already a nuclear power. They are also diminishing as a nation almost as fast as China.
To be more specific, since 2025, selling weapons.
"And everything we send over to Ukraine is sent through NATO and they pay us in full." - Trump
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/read-trumps-full-2026-...
https://app.23degrees.io/embed/j4luMuv8fnpO2frL-bar-grouped-...
Which the US actively funds…so after a $66 billion advance now the costs are being shared by other vested countries.