Former Trump representative spoke in favor of mobilizing Ukrainian women
Former US President Donald Trump's special representative for Ukraine Keith Kellogg supported the idea of mobilizing women into the Ukrainian army. In his opinion, women are capable of military service and participating in combat operations on equal terms with men.
Kellogg said this while answering a question about possible mobilization of women, reports "Strana.ua", which published a video with his answer.
"Do I think that women should be mobilized into the army? My answer: yes, because they fight no worse than men," — Kellogg said.
He added that he considers women's participation in military service important for society and sees no problem with it from either a personal or professional point of view.
As an example, Kellogg cited his own family. According to him, his wife served as a paratrooper and participated in the US operation in Grenada, and his daughter graduated from the US Military Academy, was also a paratrooper and served in Afghanistan.
Kellogg currently holds no position in the US administration. He was Trump's special representative for Ukraine until the end of 2025. Therefore, his statement is the position of a former American official and by itself does not mean a change in US policy.
These days Kellogg is in Ukraine. He visited Odesa and then arrived in Kyiv, where he met with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and participated in events on the eve of Independence Day. In particular, at the forum "35 Years of Faith and Freedom" Kellogg separately noted the participation of Ukrainian women in infantry, drone operations, medicine, and unit command.
The topic of compulsory service for women has been discussed in Ukraine in recent weeks as well. On August 20, former Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov also said that conscription, in his opinion, should apply to both men and women.
Reznikov proposed using women, including in rear positions, to free up more male servicemen for tasks closer to the front. He also argued that this approach would significantly increase the country's mobilization resource.
Reznikov left the post of defense minister in September 2023 amid a series of scandals around army procurement. However, no corruption charges were brought personally against him in the investigated episodes.
Ukrainian authorities currently do not officially plan mandatory mobilization of women. On August 11, the head of the Center for Countering Disinformation at the NSDC Andriy Kovalenko said that no decisions on women's mobilization are being prepared. Earlier, the Ground Forces also reported that mechanisms for mandatory mobilization of women are not being developed.
Based on materials from: "Strana.ua", Ukrinform, Radio Svoboda
