In the third year of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukraine’s citizens could not be more aware of the need to fight and protect their families and country. Yet the desperate need for more soldiers has become politicized, impeding Ukraine’s chances of success in its war for survival.
As troops on the frontline cry out for better weapons and reinforcements — and with some exhausted after months at the front without rotation — lawmakers have been locked in disputes over the best way to fill the ranks of Ukraine’s army.
The situation has become even more urgent since Russia attacked Kharkiv on May 10. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, head of military intelligence told the New York Times on May 14: “I’ve used everything [all the reserve units] we have. Unfortunately, we don’t have anyone else in the reserves.”
Before the February 2022 attack, there were 8.7 million men of conscription age in Ukraine; by February 2024 there were about 5 million. Ukraine’s army needs up to 400,000 more soldiers to fight off the Russians, who have a mobilization capacity at least four times as great given the difference in population size.
With such a disparity, Ukraine urgently needs to find ways to put on record and get to the front as many of its men as possible, keep them alive, and make its army the most efficient it can possibly be.
Some 35% of men not already at the front are willing to serve, according to a study by polling company InfoSapiens, which also asked about what was deterring people from signing up.
Their fears included a shortage of material and equipment (66%), lack of proper training (64%), the risk of death or injury (64%), and uncertainty about the terms of demobilization (64%.) Just over half (52%) cited a fear of bad officers — significantly more than the fear of captivity.
This anxiety about poor leadership is partly a consequence of public criticism of the way commanders’ effectiveness is assessed. Despite the greater value placed on the lives of Ukrainian soldiers by their officers than their Russian counterparts, the number of casualties is not included in evaluations.
Conscription became the most contested issue in Ukraine at a time when good legislation and timely action were desperately needed. Its democratic institutions have struggled to deliver.
Ukraine’s parliament finally passed an updated mobilization bill in April, after months of revisions and more than 4,000 amendments. In the same month, after almost a year of distancing himself from the issue, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed three other related laws, including one lowering the conscription age to 25 and canceling the “partially eligible” status for some conscription-aged citizens. The status allowed people with certain health issues to be eligible for military service with some restrictions; now, there will only be the “eligible” and “noneligible” categories; those who held the newly canceled status will have to repeat health evaluation in the following 12 months after May 18.
The laws are unpopular, and late. The entire question of demobilization was excluded from the bill and will be handled separately taking several more months. That means there is no immediate relief for those soldiers who have been on the front lines with only short breaks for two or more years.
Areas of dispute included the withdrawal of consular services from conscription-aged Ukrainian men outside the country who have not registered for military service; the compulsory annual re-assessment of people whose health makes them “partially eligible” for conscription; and restrictions on driving and holding certain jobs for those avoiding the draft.
The main goal of the approved law — as noted by a representative of the ruling Servants of the People party and member of the Committee on National Security, Defense, and Intelligence, Fedir Venislavskyi — “is to record all conscripts and update their data so that the state clearly understands who can be mobilized, who has the right to postpone the draft, and who is reserved [at their workplace].” There are no clear objectives as to the numbers of conscripted citizens expected as a result of the new law as well as no updated training systems for conscripts, even though those currently in place have proven unsatisfactory for the growing pace of mobilization.
The slow rate of mobilization and related lack of front-line unit rotation, even with the new legislation, has left soldiers and their families in limbo, with no clear idea about the future. The terms of demobilization or rotation remain unknown. The worsening situation on the front lines required urgent action to make conscription more effective, but it was delayed for months in part because its inevitably unpopular nature was going to lower the citizens’ trust in the government. The independent media Texty.org accused the government of deliberately choosing a strategy of languid mobilization to redirect Ukrainians’ anger and frustration at each other rather than ministers.
The politicization of conscription has created clear divisions between members of parliament, yet changes to the new law were reviewed in an almost empty chamber the night before it was passed. From a list of more than 4,000 amendments, the Committee on National Security, Defense, and Intelligence selected just 31, all from the president’s Servants of the People party.
The process, brought to the attention of voters by the controversy surrounding the legislation, highlighted the risk that the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s parliament, is losing legitimacy due to a shortage of elected members. As of May 1, the 450-member body has just 401 members still working.
Lawmakers have been giving up their mandates and leaving to join the military, pursue other careers in government, or as a result of frustration at not being able to pursue their interests. While members elected under the party list system (215 members) are relatively easy to substitute, under martial law there is no way to replace those from the other half of parliament, who were elected to first-past-the-post constituencies (186 members.) By elections, or special elections, are not part of the Ukrainian parliamentary framework.
Another cause of discontent, which has added to the slow pace of legislation, is the aggressive and incompetent work of territorial recruitment centers (TRCs.)
After a meeting of the National Security and Defense Council in August, Zelenskyy announced the dismissal of allleaders of local TRCs and delegated Valerii Zaluzhny (commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s Armed Forces at the time) to find replacements.
This decision, which he said was to bring an end to “cynicism and bribery” in the recruitment process, almost brought mobilization to a halt, resulting in a mismatch between the demand and supply of expertise in the armed forces.
In the meantime, newly trained troops are reaching the front line far too slowly. As a recent frontline report from the Kyiv Independent stated: “Experts and soldiers alike identify manpower as the core problem at the heart of Ukraine’s military at this stage of the war: overstretched and undermanned units, with infantry often fighting for so long without rotation that their combat effectiveness begins to drop.”
Kateryna Panasiuk is an author and journalist studying politics at the Ukrainian Catholic University. When war came to Ukraine, she set up a volunteer project to collect and share the stories of Ukrainians affected by the war.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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