Ukraine may need additional mobilization if Russia deploys nuclear weapons in Belarus. This was expressed by the Verkhovna Rada deputy and head of the ruling party “Servant of the People” faction David Arakhamia in an interview with the British TV channel Sky News.
“This will mean a real challenge. More people will need to be recruited. We will need at least eight additional brigades to control this front line,” he said.
According to him, the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus puts the task of opening a “second front” more than a thousand kilometers in front of Kiev.
At the same time, Arakhemia added that Ukrainians “have not yet taken these threats seriously,” but cited experience that shows that anything can happen.
There is now a general mobilization in Ukraine, declared in conjunction with martial law from February 25, 2022 and extended quarterly. Men between the ages of 18-60 are prohibited from leaving the country.
Since June last year, men of military age have been prohibited from leaving their territories. In the summer, the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine announced that women trained in chemistry, biology and telecommunications should also be enrolled in the army, and they would also be prohibited from leaving the country. But in the fall of 2022, Deputy Defense Minister Anna Malyar announced that women’s military registration was delayed for one year.
There is no exact information about the number of Ukrainians mobilized. In June, Malyar said hundreds of thousands of people had been drafted into the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Kiev announced plans to increase the size of the army to 700 thousand employees.
According to official estimates from Kiev, about 1.6 million mobilized men left Ukraine in 2022. According to various estimates, there are between 18 and 25 million people left in the country at the beginning of 2023. About half of them are men.
Russian public and political figure Rostislav Antonov has calculated that the number of men aged 20-65 in Ukraine is currently about 6 million, of which 2 million could be mobilized.
At the same time, Ukrainian media and Telegram channels predicted an increase in mobilization measures in the country since last autumn. The men were warned that the military registration and enlistment offices would not deliver subpoenas, but would catch people on the streets and then figure out if a person had been mobilized.
Mobilization can be paid according to Ukrainian Telegram channels – the cost of the corresponding certificate is about 10,000 US dollars. According to anonymous media sources, all certificates for mobilization “inclination” until the autumn of 2023 can be revoked.
On March 25, President Vladimir Putin announced that Moscow would deploy tactical nuclear weapons on Belarusian territory. According to him, the Russian military has already helped re-equip Belarusian aircraft so that they can carry nuclear weapons. In addition, Russia delivered to Minsk the Iskander complexes, which can also be carriers of nuclear charges.
On April 3, training of Belarusian crews will begin, and by July 1, Putin announced the completion of the construction of a storage facility for nuclear weapons in Belarus. At the same time, the President did not specify when nuclear weapons would be deployed in the neighboring country.
As Putin explained, Alexander Lukashenko raised the issue of the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons. Moreover, Moscow’s decision is a response to London, which has announced that it will supply depleted uranium-containing ammunition to Ukraine.
Following Putin’s statement, Kiev demanded an extraordinary meeting of the UN Security Council and urged G7 leaders to warn Minsk of the consequences of deploying Russian nuclear weapons. Germany described Russia’s plans as an “attempted intimidation”, while the EU said it was ready to impose new sanctions.