On the front line, Ukraine lacks everything: weapons, ammunition and now soldiers. Moscow’s assaults, carried out since Friday May 10 in the Kharkiv region, have put Ukrainian soldiers to the test. “There was no first line of defense. (…) The Russians simply advanced“, the commander of an army unit told the BBC.
In a post published at the beginning of April on Facebook, the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army was already sounding the alarm. “No matter how much help we receive (…), no matter how many weapons we have: we don’t have enough people.”worried General Oleksandr Pavliuk, before recalling that“a drone does not fly alone”.
Since the failure of kyiv’s counter-offensive, the extension of mobilization has been a thorny social issue. Several laws relating to lowering the age of conscription, the creation of a digital military register and the strengthening of sanctions against draft dodgers were passed in the Rada, the Ukrainian Parliament, despite criticism from oppositions. In addition to these political difficulties, there are several logistical and organizational constraints which hamper the effectiveness of military recruitment.
As Ukraine enters its third year of war, kyiv needs reinforcements. “We are short of soldiers every day“, gets annoyed Vladyslav Shevchuk, officer in a paratrooper brigade, in an interview with the Ukrainian news site Bihus.info. “We are short of staff (…) because for one reason or another, the mobilization is not there“.
Some units, particularly in infantry, fight with “half of their full squad“, reports analyst Jakub Ber, in a note published by the think tank Center for Eastern Studies. Several soldiers who joined the army during the first months of the war in 2022”were killed, injured or left the army for health or family reasons“, explains the expert. These losses are not systematically replaced.
On the other side of the front line, Moscow has a seemingly inexhaustible reservoir. Russia mobilizes around 30,000 new recruits every month, assures Vadym Skibitsky, number two in the Ukrainian secret services, to the RBC media. On the Ukrainian side, this shortage accentuates physical and mental exhaustion and limits unit rotations. Some soldiers are fighting “continuously on the front line since the start of the war“, according to the Center for Eastern Studies.
Human losses and non-renewal of personnel have also led to an aging of the units. As of March 2022, the average age of a Ukrainian soldier was around 30 to 35 years old, according to the British daily The Financial Times. A year and a half later, this average has increased by ten years to reach 43 years in November 2023, according to the magazine Time. This phenomenon has a direct impact on the organization and effectiveness of the armed forces. For Jakub Ber, senior soldiers “do not have the stamina to withstand the tests of grueling trench warfare“.
President Volodymyr Zelensky revealed in December that the general staff wanted to enlist 500,000 additional soldiers. Since February 24, 2022, the country has been under martial law. This legal regime, renewed every 90 days, prohibits men aged 18 to 60 from leaving the country. To replenish its forces, kyiv has a mixed system based on the recruitment of volunteers and the incorporation of conscripts.
After several months of procrastination, the Head of State noted the expansion of the mobilization with the signing of a law, on April 2, 2024, lowering the age of conscription by two years, from 27 to 25 years. “Politically, this is a very unpopular decision“, analysis from franceinfo Elena Davlikanova, researcher at the Center for European Policy Studies think tank and associate professor at Sumy State University. This text, adopted a year ago in Parliament on May 30, 2023, risks disappointing part of the president’s support, “notably the twenty-somethings who made up a large part of its electorate in 2019“, specifies Jakub Ber.
To renew the pool of fighters, the parliamentarians of the Rada also adopted on May 8 another text allowing certain categories of prisoners to go and fight on the front in exchange for an amnesty. On Facebook, presidential party deputy Olena Chouliak clarified that this measure would concern voluntary detainees, and would require the agreement of the military authorities after examining the prisoner’s state of physical and mental health.
In theory, lowering the age of conscription should allow the enlistment of thousands of young men, but the duration and scale of this mobilization remain a mystery. “We do not know exactly how many of these people (…) are registered on the military registers, and therefore in what time frame they will receive their summons“, specifies Jakub Ber, in another note from the Center for Eastern Studies.
“This is a real problem: everything is done on paper, there are no digital files“, confirms Ivan Gomza, professor of political science at the Kyiv School of Economics. Recruitment centers have poorly maintained military records that are separate from national databases.”Yesterday I went to the recruitment center at 7am to update my data. I managed to get into the center early in the afternoon, after six hours of waiting…explains the teacher to franceinfo. The State does not have a clear and effective system“.
This poor organization has practical consequences. Certain populations and socio-professional categories are thus over-represented in the army. “En 2022 and 2023, military conscription centers mainly enlisted elderly people, registered in the available registers”says the Center for Eastern Studies. To reverse this trend, Ukrainian deputies approved the creation of a single digital register in January. “It is designed to reduce the number of errors due to the human factor and save public and human resources through digitalization“, specifies the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense.
Some brigades have chosen to free themselves from the official system to strengthen themselves. As Politico explains, army units have decided to take matters into their own hands by organizing with some success their own recruitment campaigns on digital platforms, such as Lobby X. In this race, certain military formations stand out , like the Azov Assault Brigade, founded by far-right activist and former MP, Andriy Biletsky. According to the Center for European Policy Analysis, several factors explain their success, such as the establishment of intensive training provided to volunteers and the publication on YouTube of videos addressing daily life at the front.
Joining the army sometimes involves going to the front for an indefinite period. This prospect worries many mobilizers. According to the British weekly The Spectator18,000 Ukrainian citizens eligible for conscription were arrested while trying to flee the country.
The possibility of leaving the army is not on the government’s agenda in any case. During the Rada’s examination of the project which strengthens the sanctions for those who resist, parliamentarians removed a clause providing for the demobilization of soldiers who had served thirty-six months at the front.
This decision caused controversy in Ukrainian society. “People are afraid to go to the front because they don’t know how long they will serve in the armed forces“, comments to franceinfo MP Oleksiy Hontcharenko, member of European Solidarity, the party of former President Petro Poroshenko. Soldiers who have been fighting for more than two years want to know when they will return, and that’s normal!“
The text, adopted on April 11 after two months of parliamentary debates, also aroused opposition. More than 4,000 amendments were submitted before the draft was examined at second reading, specifies the Stockholm Center for Eastern European Studies. “Some opposition MPs have used the law for populist purposes. Elections are long overdue and a hot topicobserves Elena Davlikanova. However, the overall complexity of the issue and the great interest of all stakeholders also explain the high number of amendments“. The executive assured that the question of demobilization would be dealt with in a future law, but no date has yet been set.