The Verkhovna Rada adopted the draft law on mandatory military training for medical students and pharmacists
The Verkhovna Rada adopted the draft law in the first reading №12276, which provides for mandatory military training for students of higher educational institutions who are studying in medical and pharmaceutical specialties. 262 parliamentarians voted for reported people’s deputy from the “Voice” fraction Yaroslav Zheleznyak.
The draft law proposes to restore military training for students of medical and pharmaceutical universities. The training will be carried out by persons fit for service and selected according to established criteria. The Verkhovna Rada noted that the expected effect is the strengthening of the state’s defense capabilities and the transformation of military medicine into a “systemic” one.
In the explanatory note, it is emphasized that there are nine higher education institutions in Ukraine, where students of the specialty “Medicine” are trained at state expense, but only four of them have military training units. Currently, military training under the program of reserve officers of the medical service is carried out on a voluntary basis and mostly at the expense of the students themselves.
“The draft law was developed with the aim of meeting the state’s needs for military medical personnel by resuming mandatory military training under the program of training reserve officers of the medical service for those seeking higher education in medical and pharmaceutical specialties.” – explained the authors of the document.
As a reminder, from September 2025, Ukrainian students will undergo basic general military training. The Ministry of Defense noted that it will become a separate discipline and will be mandatory for both men and women.
