companies will be able to pay a tax to prevent their employees from going to the front

In Ukraine, a Russian strike on the town of Krivy Khir left at least nine dead and dozens injured on Wednesday June 12. The Ukrainian army is seriously short of soldiers, so the government has revised the mobilization rules, lowering the age for enlistment from 27 to 25. But Volodymyr Zelensky is also on a tightrope because to wage war, you need means and therefore the country’s economy must continue. Hence the bill tabled by majority deputies: companies will be able to keep part of their employees on the sole condition of paying a tax.

The mobilization disrupted the life of companies which found themselves deprived of their employees overnight. The equation is difficult to solve, recognizes majority deputy Dmytro Nataloukha. “The economy is currently in danger, but it is the economy that the front depends on, because without money, no war is possible to wage. The mobilization of employees was chaotic and this caused the shutdown of companies for a few months”he explains.

He has therefore just tabled a bill: banks, insurers, drone manufacturers or mechanics will have to pay a tax to keep some of their employees in the office, explains Dmytro Nataloukha. “The employer himself determines which trades he needs the most, which employees are most important to him,” he specifies.

“The employer will pay for them a military tax of 20,000 ryvnias, or 455 euros per month, and that way he can count on them for a year, they will not be mobilized.”

Dmytro Nataloukha, majority deputy

at franceinfo

Employers will be able to retain a maximum of half of their workforce. MPs estimate that only 15 to 20 percent are essential to their businesses, meaning 700,000 to a million people exempt from serving in the military.