‘Welfare Whore’ is just ‘Ukraine’ spelled sideways…
Just a handful of days back, I openly questioned if the Ukrainians really want to win this particular war with Putin’s Russia.
After all, an entire brigade has self-destructed before they even met the Russians in battle.
Keep in mind that there has been news going back a handful of months that the AVERAGE age of the AVERAGE Ukrainian soldier is somewhere between 40 and 45.
To better break that down for a Western audience, the average age (both enlisted and officer) in the United States Marine Corps is 25.3 years old, as cited by the everything military website USIN.us.
Now we come to some very disturbing articles in regard to the Ukrainian government, especially in light that the American taxpayers have filed Kiev’s treasury with hundreds of billions of dollars.
First, an article penned by María Paula Mijares Torres of Bloomberg News, via the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (emphasis mine);
Michael Waltz, a former Army Green Beret and combat veteran of Afghanistan whom Trump tapped as his White House national security adviser, suggested the expanded draft-age eligibility would help Ukraine overcome a shortage of troops. Ukraine has persistently struggled with manpower while fighting the full-scale invasion begun by Vladimir Putin’s Russia almost three years ago.
“One of the things that we’ll be asking of the Ukrainians is — they have real manpower issues,” Waltz said Sunday on ABC’s This Week. “Their draft age right now is 26 years old, not 18. I don’t think a lot of people realize that they could generate hundreds of thousands of new soldiers.”
Ukraine lowered the wartime conscription age to 25 from 27 as of last May. While that appears to contradict the age cited by Waltz, his broader point was clear.
Then Elsa Court of the KyivIndependent.com notes just a few short weeks ago;
When looking at Ukraine’s Armed Forces, there is one thing that stands out — it is made up predominantly of older men.
Ukraine has never publicly released information about the age of its troops, but the average age is reportedly around 43 years old. Exact figures on the size of Ukraine’s armed forces are also not publicly known, with estimates ranging from the hundreds of thousands to around 1 million.
Time journalist Simon Shuster, who published a book profiling President Volodymyr Zelensky in January 2024, quoted one of Zelensky’s aides who was concerned about the age of Ukrainian troops.
“They’re grown men now, and they aren’t that healthy to begin with,” the unnamed aide told Shuster. “This is Ukraine. Not Scandinavia.”
With some exceptions, Ukrainian men aged 18 to 60 are not allowed to leave the country during martial law, but only men over 25 are eligible for the draft. Until earlier this year, the minimum draft age was 27.
Despite lowering the draft age to 25, news emerged in mid-October that U.S. lawmakers were pressuring Kyiv to further lower the draft age. Presidential Office advisor Serhii Leshchenko wrote on X that “politicians from both parties” were pushing Ukraine to start mobilizing its 18-25-year-olds.
As noted on the Wayback Machine (internet archive), it was in 2014 that Ukraine began a nation-wide “partial mobilization” ordering back;
- Ex-soldiers starting at 35-years-old.
- Ex-mid-level NCOs at 40.
- Ex-senior enlisted and ex-officers at 45.
- Ex-Warrant Officers at 50.
On a personal note, why are we giving a single penny to a nation that mobilizes its manpower completely backwards?