The Ukrainian army has a shortage of soldiers. After almost two years of war, the troops are showing alarming signs of fatigue and, given the harsh winter and a possible new attack by Russia, new recruits, especially young people, are needed. This is the alarm given by the officers ahead.
““Our units are understaffed,” he complained to the news agency. afp Major Oleksandr Volkov, battalion commander of the 24th mechanized brigade. “We need motivated young people under 40,” he adds. If in the first months of the conflict the ranks of the Ukrainian army were enthusiastically filled with volunteers, now the climate has changed. Lieutenant Igor Prokopiak says that at the beginning of the battle “everything happened with adrenaline, with some kind of joy. Everyone rushed to fight.” “But over time, the situation calmed down. People gained access to social networks, they saw the terrible and cruel side of war. Initially, the adrenaline ran out, the brain woke up, fear appeared, and as a result, people began to fear for their own life,” Prokopiak continues.
And so the recruitment system, which was supposed to support personnel turnover at the front, showed worrying signs of inefficiency and corruption, while the number of volunteers also dwindled in the process: mobilization methods are too “Soviet”, focused on quantity over quality. Experts of the Kiev army say that the quality is high. But there were also numerous bribes that allowed conscripts to flee abroad. It is no coincidence that last summer President Volodymyr Zelensky had to intervene by dismissing all regional officials responsible for recruiting new personnel. However, this shock does not yet seem to have produced the desired results; So much so that at the beginning of the month the president once again called on military leaders to change their recruitment methods.
Also putting pressure on Zelensky are the wives of front-line soldiers who have been demonstrating in Kiev for several weeks to demand the return of their husbands after 22 months of conflict. It’s also worrying Major Volkov says the average age of soldiers is 40% over 45. His call: “The state must respond, recruit troops, change units, change people who have been fighting for two years, including me.”
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Source: Today IT
Karen Clayton is a seasoned journalist and author at The Nation Update, with a focus on world news and current events. She has a background in international relations, which gives her a deep understanding of the political, economic and social factors that shape the global landscape. She writes about a wide range of topics, including conflicts, political upheavals, and economic trends, as well as humanitarian crisis and human rights issues.
