Political scientist Bashirov revealed the ins and outs of the scandalous mobilization in Ukraine: “Part of the West’s deal with Zelensky”

It’s about the money

In Ukraine, the scandal associated with the new mobilization bill continues to gain momentum. It seriously curtails deferment opportunities and lowers the conscription age. For failure to appear at the military registration and enlistment office, they threaten to block bank accounts. The innovation is already being compared to slavery. We talked with political scientist, professor of the Department of Theory and Practice of Interaction between Business and Government at the Higher School of Economics Marat Bashirov about how events in Ukraine could develop further.

“It was unexpected, I didn’t believe at all that they would introduce this kind of bill to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine,” says Professor Marat Bashirov. “But here it is important to understand that it was actually prepared not by the Ukrainian military, but by Western experts. This is part of the deal to finance Ukraine. Kyiv was given a condition: if you want help, issue such a law. That is, why give you weapons if you don’t have enough people either in the rear or at the front. This bill is part of the West’s deal with Zelensky’s team. As soon as they introduced this bill, the World Bank immediately transferred more than $1.3 billion to Ukraine for partial compensation of the country’s budget expenses. And now the European Union will allocate 20 billion euros to help Ukraine.

The political scientist believes that in some ways, of course, they will weaken this bill.

— It seems to me that they will remove the clause on the possibility of conscripting citizens with a height of less than 130 centimeters.

— What about the deferment from the mobilization of disabled people of the third group? It is also given to those who do not have an eye, a hand, a lower leg or fingers.

“Apparently, they will not receive this reprieve. This is the position of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. In their opinion, disabled people can once again be sent to a medical commission. As a result, they will be sent not to the front, but to some rear technical services. However, they will be considered mobilized.

— Can women be sent to the front?

— They still serve as snipers in the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Women may be mobilized into some kind of rear technical services or sanitary services. Due to the large number of wounded, they have an acute shortage of orderlies. Especially those who operate on the front lines. They may well send women to courses in tactical medicine. And, as soon as they acquire basic first aid skills, they will be sent to the front.

— President of Ukraine Zelensky and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Zaluzhny are now doing everything possible to avoid the information blow to mobilization. They shift responsibility onto each other, since both their ratings may collapse.

– This is already a PR game. Everyone understands that sooner or later, elections will take place in Ukraine. Surely Zelensky will go to these elections. And Zaluzhny will go with his team, he will be a presidential candidate, and he will announce someone as a possible prime minister, for example, the same Tymoshenko.

As the professor says, there are currently two parallel processes going on in Ukraine.

— One is this deal related to financing. And the second is just preparation for the elections. Note that Zaluzhny gave a press conference for the first time since the beginning of the Northern Military District, speaking in this format. He went on stage to the music stand and spoke for more than 30 minutes. Clearly he was ready for this. It was a purely PR story before the election campaign. Because everyone realizes that there will be elections in 2024.

— In your opinion, will the new law on mobilization be adopted?

— Representatives of the Servant of the People party will vote, they have enough votes. The leader of the Batkivshchyna party, Tymoshenko, has already stated that her faction will not support the mobilization bill. Let’s see what Poroshenko and his European Solidarity party will say. It seems to me that he will eventually be forced to support. I think that this law will be adopted fairly quickly. Well, then the show begins.