Zelenskyy comments on mobilisation plans and idea to draft people based on lottery approach

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has stated that Ukrainian military leadership developed the plan for the required number of mobilised people, which is currently being implemented.

Source: Zelenskyy in an interview with The Philadelphia Inquirer's Trudy Rubin

Quote: "First of all, the request for the number [of people who need to be mobilised] is formed by the leadership of the Armed Forces. We can provide weapons, clothing, and modern technology, and I have to find money to produce that, and encourage partners to do it. But when it comes to planning tactical operations, to how many people are needed at the front – it is necessary that the military leadership formulate it.

The military leadership came up with the figures, I saw them, and today they are following this plan."

Zelenskyy also opposed the journalist's proposal to use a lottery-based approach to choose people for mobilisation in Ukraine, something which the US government resorted to during the Vietnam war in 1969.

"They said that there was such a lottery once. I believe that this is unethical in relation to people who are already at the front line, and it is not fair, to be honest, to everyone. This lottery story occurred in the United States, but it was not a war in your homeland or for the survival of the United States. It is not an existential dilemma; it is rather something else. Ukraine is struggling for existence. And when we are discussing concepts such as survival and lottery in the same sentence – they are quite incompatible in my view," he said. 

Zelenskyy stressed that "we must do everything to care about people and even more about technologies."

"We will surely develop a document and will do everything possible to ensure that it is presented to Russian authorities, and that powerful governments from other countries attempt to end the war in a fair fashion. Of course, in various formats and dialogues. Of course, the war will not be totally over in a way that everyone would be happy about how it ended. As a result, it takes longer to complete. However, the document can be written in which some of the challenges are no longer solved by bullets, but by one or more kinds of dialogue," the president said.

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