Are Ukrainian women being mobilized to perform compulsory military service? No, that's not true: During a telethon aired by Channel 5 on January 8, 2023, Ukraine's Deputy Minister of Defense, Hanna Maliar confirmed that women in Ukraine are not designated for mandatory mobilization until 2026.
The claim originated from a TikTok video and reappeared in a video (archived here) where it was published by belshkvarka on August 3, 2023, under the title "About women's mobilization." In the video translated from Russian by Lead Stories staff, the author man says:
I have a question to Ukrainians: you first enlisted volunteers, then you started running after other guys with a draft paper, now you draft our women into the army? What are you smoking there?
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Tue Aug 8 08:01:04 2023 UTC)
Ukrainian law states that women with education and training in medicine or pharmacy are subject to registration for a military draft, but Maliar noted that even those with medical training are not required to register for service at this point and cannot be mobilized without their consent. Women can join the Ukrainian armed forces on a voluntary basis.
In October 2022 President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy endorsed a law that outlines the eligibility requirements for voluntary military service registration for women.
Chief specialist of Gender Equality and Religious Organizations of the Department of Humanitarian Support of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, Lyubov Humenyuk stated that 60,538 women were part of ZSU (the Armed Forces of Ukraine) as of March 1, 2023.
