Ukraine lowers conscription age to 25 to plug troop shortfall

Troops have depleted over the two years of the war. Pic/PTI

Ukraine on Wednesday lowered the military conscription age from 27 to 25 in an effort to replenish its depleted ranks after two years of war with Russia. The new mobilisation law came into force a day after Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed it. Ukraine's parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, passed it last year.

It was not immediately clear why Zelenskyy took so long to sign the measure into law. Officials did not say how many new soldiers the country expected to gain. Conscription has been a sensitive matter in Ukraine for many months amid a growing shortage of infantry on top of a severe ammunition shortfall that has handed Russia the battlefield initiative.

Pope denounces ‘madness of war'

Pope Francis led thousands in a moment of silence Wednesday to pray for the aid workers killed by an Israeli strike in Gaza and a young Ukrainian soldier named Oleksandre who was killed in ‘this madness of war". Francis also showed the rosary and camouflaged New Testament book that a 23-year-old Ukrainian soldier named Oleksandre had with him when he was killed.

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