From the Forecast: Ukrainian government to start notifying citizens for conscription

Ukrainian?authorities will start sending people eligible for military service?notice by?Thursday?as part of a packet of measures adopted earlier this year aimed at ramping up mobilization in the war against Russia.?Eligible citizens who do not update their military records by July 16?may face fines under the new measures.

What’s happened so far? Ukraine?adopted a new mobilization law?back in April after months of political debate and multiple revisions of the legislation. Changes aim to simplify the identification of conscripts nationwide, strengthen penalties for draft dodgers and keep track of eligible citizens residing abroad. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy?has also signed legislation?that lowered the minimum age of compulsory military service from 27 to 25.

The impact? Ukraine’s latest push to boost mobilization and rotate exhausted troops on the frontline comes at a crucial time in the third year of Russia’s invasion. While Russia’s new offensive in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region may have stagnated, Russian forces have intensified their efforts around the strategic town of Chasiv Yar in Donetsk region and?recently claimed to have captured an outlying district of the town. The new measures will allow Ukraine to channel new troops to the front, but will also have a knock-on effect on the economy and infrastructure as more workers are sent to fight.

Kyiv strikes?

In one of the largest and deadliest missile barrages on Kyiv since the outbreak of Russia’s full-scale invasion, 29 people?were killed and nearly 120 others injured?in strikes across Ukraine’s capital last weekend. An?additional 10 people were killed?with nearly 50 others injured during the same barrage in strikes on the city of Kryvyi Rih in the Dnipropetrovsk region. In Kyiv, Ukraine’s largest?children’s hospital was struck, destroying multiple wards and units?and?triggering international outcry. Russia?confirmed the missile barrage, claiming it was in response to Ukraine’s ongoing strike campaign targeting Russian oil infrastructure, though it denied striking any civilian facilities.

Watch for:?The strikes took place during daytime hours, an extremely rare occurrence over the past two years where large-scale strikes well beyond the frontlines of the south and east have almost exclusively occurred in the middle of the night. Given this,?the Kremlin?and?Russian propagandists seized upon?the vast amount of media of the strikes to?erroneously claim the hospital?was struck by western surface-to-air missiles. It is too soon to tell if daytime missile waves will become a trend, but?regardless,?bolstering Ukraine’s air defense systems and stockpiles?will become a major focus for Ukraine’s western partners as?Russian missile production levels continue to soar?despite sanctions and export controls.?

Read more of next week's news in the Factal Forecast.