After 22 months of a war costly in men, the Ukrainian army is struggling to find new recruits to go to the front, to fight Russian forces once again on the offensive.
“Our units are understaffed. We need young people, under 40, and motivated”: worries Major Oleksandre Volkov, commander of a battalion of the 24th mechanized brigade.
That morning, the officer preferred to cancel an outdoor training session near Bakhmut for new recruits, because of the frost, in order to prevent his men from getting injured.
Only indoor courses will be given on the dismantling and reassembly of individual weapons and first aid.
“Today’s society has probably been deceived by some media, saying that everything is fine (for the Ukrainian army), that we are defeating the enemy and that victory will take place in the near future,” regrets the major .
“But the current situation is not so simple. The enemy is really very strong, very powerful. And we do everything to hold him back and beat him,” he adds.
After the failure of the Ukrainian summer counter-offensive in the South, which crashed against a solid Russian defense, Moscow’s troops have regained the initiative since the fall and are attacking several sectors, in particularly in the East.
Adrenaline and exhilaration
Koupiansk, Bakhmout, Avdiïvka, Marinka…: with more human resources and ammunition, the Russian army is slowly gaining ground, despite significant losses in men and equipment.
Opposite, the Ukrainians are struggling to defend after two trying years, in the heat of the summers, the mud and snow of the winters, and the constant bombardments on the trenches.
Some who have been fighting since the beginning on February 24, 2022 are exhausted. The killed and wounded have difficulty being replaced, with volunteers becoming rarer.
At the start of the conflict, “everything happened in adrenaline, in a sort of exaltation […]everyone rushed to fight and so there was no problem” with numbers, says Lieutenant Igor Prokopiak, company commander.
“But over time, it calmed down. People had access to social networks, they saw the terrible, cruel side of war. This initial adrenaline wore off, the brain woke up, fear appeared and, as a result, people began to fear for their lives,” the 32-year-old officer continues.
Oleksandr Volkov notes that civilians “don’t really want to join the armed forces”.
And the average age of soldiers on the front is increasing. The major cites his unit which has 40% of people aged 45 and over.
“I have seen a lot of young people in civilian life, I don’t know why they are not mobilized,” notes Mr. Volkov.
“It’s the others’ turn”
“The State must respond, recruit, replace units, replace people who have been fighting for two years already, including me,” he insists.
For several weeks, soldiers’ wives have also been demonstrating in kyiv to demand the return of their husbands from the front, with among other slogans: “Now it’s the others’ turn.”
On December 1, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky asked the military command to review the recruitment system.
“It is not simply a question of numbers, of people who can be mobilized […] It’s a question of timing for each person who is currently in the army, for demobilization, and for those who will join the units, he said.
Major Volkov criticizes the mobilization offices which are too “Soviet”, with their approach where “quality is secondary”. “They are focused only on the quantitative result.”
The system was also plagued by corruption which allowed conscripts to escape the army. President Zelensky had to dismiss all regional recruitment officials last summer.
Taras does not know why he was not mobilized sooner. He has just arrived in Major Volkov’s unit and is training with other recruits.
“I was stopped on the street and received an invitation to the military registration office. So I went there,” says this 38-year-old municipal employee from the Transcarpathian region, a western region more than 1000 km from the front.
“To be honest, the closer I am (to the front line), the more interesting it is, the more I understand the necessity of it. Back home, it’s really far from all that, so life is very calm there,” he explains.
“Now I understand that I should have come earlier. Because Ukraine must be defended.”