Russia has increased the intensity of its missile and drone attacks against Ukrainian cities in recent weeks, most especially Kyiv. Both at the societal and individual level, these attacks are frightening and horrifying. Of course, these are war crimes and those responsible should be in the dock at the Hague.

Yet, remarkably, thousands of young Ukrainians are protesting in the streets, making their voices heard about the controversial ouster of former Defense Minister Federov. The details of the case are well known, and the politics summarized well by excellent dispatches by Andrew Kramer at the NYT & Christopher Miller at the FT.

For scholars of nationalism and demography, who fights and sacrifices for the nation, as well as how the nation fights and protects (or not) its soldiers, are highly contentious questions, literally matters of life and death. Ukraine’s current protests are driven by young people (many between 18 and 25) while Federov’s emphasis on high tech unmanned systems seems to offer the possibility of escaping attritional warfare. Rhetorically the issue is frequently framed as as a contest between a ‘Soviet state’ versus a ‘digital state,’ a corrupt set of ‘deep state’ military-industrial practices versus transparent nimble and agile practices, highly ideologized visions that should not be taken at face value.

In our recent Virginia Tech/University of Colorado funded survey administered by KIIS of 1801 Ukrainians in June 2026, we asked a series of questions about sensitive topics including controversies over the age of military mobilization and corruption surrounding mobilization, which is sometimes violent (so-called busification).

These findings were recently published in The Conversation: Amidst Grinding War Protesting Ukrainians still want their voices heard.

Here’s is one of the most important findings in graph form (created from the data by Sarah Wilson Sokhey), on the question of whether Ukraine should mobilize all its young men (implicitly 18+) as some states like the US have been pressuring Ukraine to do.

From the outset, Ukraine’s leaders said they wanted to protect young men to safeguard the demographic future of the nation. That became a societal consensus and it is still intact. But the manpower crisis is severe and mobilization a major priority for Ukraine.