Ukraine okays law to call up reservists for service

By Gozde Bayar

ANKARA (AA) - Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday signed a law allowing reservists to be called up for military service within 24 hours without announcing mobilization.

The law will help quickly deploy additional manpower to the defense forces, which will “significantly increase their combat effectiveness during a rapidly growing military aggression, as well as quickly increase the combat potential and respond to sudden threats to national security,” said a Ukrainian Presidency statement.

On March 30, the Ukrainian parliament had passed the law with 256 of 450 lawmakers voted in favor.

In recent weeks, Russia has gathered combat-ready forces close to the Ukrainian border which is considered "the largest massing of Russian troops since the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014," according to NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.

Ukraine has been plagued by conflict in its eastern regions since March 2014, following Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea.

Fighting between Ukrainian government forces and pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine has seen more than 13,000 people killed, according to the UN.