The West fears that Ukraine's defense system will soon collapse.

This is the statement of the media department of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) that TASS news agency accessed on January 3.

The SVR statement said that based on the information it has received, the Western political elite sees a decline in the Ukrainian army's ability to resist attacks by the Russian armed forces. It is not excluded that the Ukrainian army's defense system will soon collapse.

According to SVR, the outgoing administration of US President Joe Biden is looking to avoid this scenario, focusing on providing more sophisticated weapons, including long-range missiles. However, the White House admits that simply providing weapons and equipment to the Ukrainian army is not enough to stabilize the front line.

According to SVR, the Ukrainian government is preparing a decision to lower the age of military service to 18 and will soon adopt this decision. This decision was made at the request of Washington to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

The agency also said that Eastern European countries are preparing for a new wave of refugees after Kiev lowered the military age to 18. This time, refugees will flee "not from an imaginary threat from Russia but from the real danger of a one-way ticket to the front line".

The SVR asserts that residents of the territories controlled by Kiev will be ready to find ways to leave to avoid mobilization.

The SVR stressed that the West is aware that the conflict is vital for Russia and that the West will not back down. According to the SVR, "Kiev's refusal to negotiate from the very beginning pushed the Ukrainians into a massacre, and President Zelensky is still persistently following this path."

Ukraine is currently conscripting men between the ages of 25 and 60. Last year, the Ukrainian government lowered the conscription age to 27 and older before April. Despite this, the Ukrainian military is still severely understaffed.

Earlier, on January 2, in a televised interview on Ukraine's Telemarathon, President Zelensky admitted that desertions in the army had skyrocketed in 2024 amid growing war fatigue and a shortage of reserve forces.

Meanwhile, the Financial Times recently reported that one of the main reasons for the high desertion rate in the Ukrainian army is the lack of rotation, which leads some soldiers to see desertion as their only option for escape.