By Branko Marcetic, Responsible Statecraft, 8/1/26

Ukraine is already suffering a severe demographic crisis as a result of the decision to eschew peace talks and pursue military victory instead — a decision backed emphatically by U.S. and European leaders earlier in the war.

The ensuing combination of large-scale casualties and a mass emigration of Ukrainians has left the country facing several factors that imperil its future as a viable state: not enough young and able-bodied citizens to fund its welfare state, a potential future labor shortage, and a mortality rate that outstrips its birth rate nearly four times over.

Now, some Ukrainian officials and Western war hawks are discussing an idea that would make this already crisis-level situation catastrophically worse: drafting women to fight in the war.

The proposal had already been discussed earlier this year, after a female drone commander wrote in favor of the idea and a dozen Ukrainian women received erroneous military summonses, sparking headlines around the country. The start of this month saw a petition filed urging the conscription of childless women, an idea backed by some military figures. That includes former Ukrainian Defense Minister Alexei Reznikov, who, pointing to the example of Israel, said “we can survive only if everyone accepts that they must defend Ukraine,” adding that it would “double our mobilization resource.”

Some of those cheering Ukraine’s war effort from outside the country have also embraced the idea. Keith Kellogg, who until December 2025 served as President Donald Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine, recently endorsed the proposal, adding that it is “very important for women, as part of society, to serve.” The Telegraph recently published a piece framing Ukrainian women’s military service as a victory for feminism; the article quoted one female drone operator endorsing the drafting of women and describing the idea as “inspiring.”

In spite of all this talk, the idea hasn’t gained real traction. A senior official on Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council said it “won’t happen”; Zelensky’s chief of staff Kyrylo Budanov deemed it “not necessary” since there were still many men who were yet to be drafted; and the petition referenced above has received only a small fraction of the signatures it needs to receive an official response from the president. By contrast, a petition in 2022 opposing the Ukrainian government’s increasingly aggressive recruitment strategies quickly received well over the 25,000 signatures it needed.

Nevertheless, the growing talk about drafting women, particularly from Ukraine’s Western backers, is an ominous development for several reasons. One is that, as Western pressure to scuttle peace talks early in the war reminds us, Ukrainian policy on both the war and other matters isn’t always wholly up to Ukraine.

This idea is a sign of the bleak situation facing Ukraine because of the decision to prolong the war. The fact that conscripting women is being floated at all indicates that Ukraine has suffered enormous casualties and suggests that the manpower shortage and recruitment crisis that have plagued Kyiv’s military campaign and led to deep social divisions and popular resentment may be even worse than we realize.

It’s also a reminder of the vast imbalance between Russia and Ukraine that continues to make outright military victory for the latter unlikely. Moscow has also thrown its people into the proverbial meat grinder of war, but, simply put, it has a lot more bodies to work with than Ukraine does.

Most mainstream discourse tends to discuss Kyiv’s military success or failure as a matter of the quantity of military aid it receives. But, the damage inflicted on Russia by Ukraine’s drone campaign notwithstanding, even modern conflict still requires human beings to use those weapons, not to mention man the broader industrial infrastructure necessary for any war effort. That serious thought is being given to drafting women is yet another signal that Ukraine is faltering in this area, lending credence to ousted former Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov’s recent warning that Ukraine is “gradually, slowly losing” the war.

In a reasonable political climate, this sorry situation would lead us to rethink our definition of being “pro-Ukraine.” The war’s most ardent cheerleaders charge that the worst thing that could happen to the country is to be forced to cede territory in negotiations that end the war. Such a result is, of course, profoundly unfair to Ukraine. But is it truly worse than a future of perpetual crisis and dysfunction brought on by the eradication of vast swaths of its able-bodied population?