The new law obliges men to update their draft data with the authorities, boosts payments to those who volunteer, and adds new punishments for draft dodging.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed into law on Tuesday a bill overhauling army mobilisation rules as Ukraine seeks to address acute troop shortages in its fight against Russia’s continued aggression.

The controversial mobilisation law, published on Ukraine’s Parliamentary website, is expected to come into force in a month.

The law obliges men to update their draft data with the authorities, making it easier to identify every draft-eligible man in the country. It also boosts payments to those who volunteer and adds new punishments for draft dodging. Many have dodged conscription by avoiding contact with authorities.

It remains unclear how many soldiers could be mobilised under the new provisions, although some serving military personnel and analysts have expressed concern that the law will not be enough to address shortages.

Ukraine has been struggling to fend off the Russian advance.

Since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022, Russia has captured nearly a quarter of Ukraine, which is outnumbered, outgunned, and in desperate need of more troops and ammunition, as doubt increases about Western military aid.

The signed law was watered down from its original draft. It lacks much tougher sanctions for draft evasion that were contained in the initial version of the legislation. It also didn’t include a provision that would rotate out troops who had served 36 months of combat.

The draft caused a public outcry among Ukrainians whose relatives have been fighting without breaks for two years, and there were more than 4,000 amendments before the final reading in parliament. Authorities said a separate bill on demobilisation and rotation would be prepared in the coming months.

Zelenskyy recently signed a separate law cutting the draft age to 25 from 27 to try to secure more fighting power.

Ukraine began mobilisation immediately after Russia’s invasion. The country initially saw a significant influx of volunteer fighters, but numbers later plunged, and thousands of cases of draft evasion have been reported since.

Ukrainian troops are facing a shortage of ammunition as vital funding from the United States has been blocked by Republicans in Congress for months and the European Union is failing to deliver munitions on time while Russian forces are inching forward.

Army chief Oleksandr Syrskyii said last week that the situation on the eastern front had significantly escalated recently and Russian troops aimed to capture the town of Chasiv Yar by May 9.