Ukrainian lawmakers have approved a bill on army mobilisation to increase troop numbers against Russia. This came a day after a clause allowing veteran soldiers to return home from the front was rejected, AFP reports.
The law was intended to make it easier to recruit soldiers into the army, but has sparked some anger in a country exhausted by more than two years of fighting Moscow's forces.
"The mobilisation bill was passed in its entirety," lawmaker Yaroslav Zheleznyak said in a Telegram message.
He said 283 of the 450 lawmakers in parliament voted in favor of the law, which toughens penalties for draft evaders.
Earlier this month, Volodymyr Zelensky lowered the mobilization age from 27 to 25 as Kiev faces a shortage of soldiers to fight Russian forces.
On April 10, parliament announced that a popular demobilization clause for soldiers who have fought for 36 months is being repealed at the request of the army.
Zelensky must still sign the mobilization law for it to take effect.
It took him almost a year to sign a previous law lowering the mobilisation age after it was passed by parliament. /BGNES
