Compulsory conscription of women is not currently part of the Ukrainian authorities’ plans.

On 25 August, the Verkhovna Rada (the Ukrainian parliament) Committee on National Security, Defence and Intelligence issued a clear statement: there are no draft laws, legislative initiatives or internal discussions aimed at introducing it. Women continue to join the Defence Forces on a voluntary basis.

This clarification came after several days during which the issue had dominated public debate.

Indeed, on 20 August, former Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov stated that the duty to defend the country should apply to all citizens, both men and women.

His argument explicitly references Israel, cited as the closest parallel to the Ukrainian situation: a state facing a permanent threat and capable of involving a very large proportion of the population in its defence.

Reznikov also addressed the practical aspect: greater involvement of women in logistics, administration, drone operations and other roles away from the front line would allow men currently deployed in the rear to be redeployed to the front.
Moreover, the Israeli experience, like that of the Soviet Union during the Second World War, shows that the deployment of women can also extend to frontline combat roles.

Oksana Ivanets, a reserve lieutenant-colonel with over twenty-five years’ service, advocates a model similar to the Israeli one: everyone should contribute to defence, with different roles depending on needs.
MP Inna Sovsun , on the other hand, emphasises the issues the system needs to address before extending obligations: deferrals and exemptions granted to men, evasion of service, and conditions that remain difficult for many female volunteer soldiers.

The debate thus touches on military requirements, fairness and the state’s organisational capacity.

References to Israel have been circulating in Ukraine for some time.
Last May, I addressed the issue in an analysis focusing on Yosef Zissels’ reflections on Ukraine.
Zissels, a leading figure in Ukrainian Jewry and a former Soviet dissident, had spoken to me in Kyiv about the need to transform Ukraine into a country that was better prepared militarily, taking Israel as a model.

In a subsequent letter, he wrote of the need to prepare children and grandchildren, both boys and girls, for the possibility of military service. The same line of thought was later included in the English-language version published in The Times of Israel.
In May, that position was primarily the reasoning of an intellectual regarding the survival of his own country. Three months later, the issue is being raised publicly by a former defence minister and echoed by a former US special envoy.

The Ukrainian authorities have, for the time being, closed the door on this.

The Verkhovna Rada Committee has ruled out any initiatives on the mobilisation of women, and some members of the Defence Committee believe it is highly unlikely that such a proposal would stand a chance in Parliament.
The speed of the response also reflects the need to counter disinformation: the Ukrainian Centre for Countering Disinformation has reported that Russian propaganda is exploiting the issue to spread the idea that Kyiv is already preparing to conscript women and to fuel the impression that Ukraine’s mobilisation resources are running out.

The question that sparked the debate remains. A protracted war gradually alters the relationship between civil society and defence. Ukraine must maintain a large armed forces, ensure troop rotations and, at the same time, sustain an economy and a population under enormous pressure.

The question of who should bear the human cost of a war that is set to drag on has become a permanent feature of the debate in Ukraine.