Ukraine’s military mobilization: Too little, too late?
At this month's Victor Pinchuk YES conference, a retired American general, Poland's foreign minister and his Ukrainian counterpart weighed in on Ukraine's manpower shortage.
Ukrainian soldiers discuss the frontline situation at the Yalta European Strategy conference in Kyiv on Sept. 13-14. (Photograph provided by the VictorPinchukFoundation©2024 and @YES2024.)
BY BRIAN BONNER
Ukraine regularly highlights a lack of weapons and Western delay in military aid as harming its defense against Russia’s war. However, Ukraine’s lack of trained soldiers may prove just as harmful.
While neither side releases casualty figures, hundreds of thousands of men are believed to have been killed or seriously wounded in the war. Russia is suffering more casualties, but with four times less population, Ukraine has fewer to lose. Russia says it has 700,000 troops in or around Ukraine, while Ukraine says it has 880,000 in the military, although most are not in direct combat roles.
Just as a six-month congressional delay this year in the latest U.S. military aid package of nearly $61 billion hindered Ukraine’s war effort, Ukraine had its own delays. Parliament debated for over a year before finally approving a new mobilization law this spring that lowers the draft age from 27 to 25, still older than most nations. Consequently, the average age of Ukraine’s soldiers is in the 40s, and there is no time limit on the length of their service during the war.
By then, an estimated 1 million Ukrainian men of fighting age had fled the country, seeking refuge mostly in European nations, some bribing their way out of military service. According to data from Eurostat, an estimated 4.1 million Ukrainians have temporary protection status in European Union countries alone.
The issue arose again at September‘s two-day Yalta European Strategy, Ukraine’s premier annual conference, organized by billionaire Victor Pinchuk’s foundation.
“It’s more than just Western support that is crucial. What matters most of all right now is Ukrainian force generation,” retired U.S. general and former CIA Director David Petraeus told the YES conference that gathers international leaders. “I think force generation does have to accelerate here, and that is as important an issue as the pace of Western assistance.”
Petraeus, who served in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, hinted that Ukraine might want to consider lowering its draft age. He noted the average age of U.S. soldiers in those wars was 19-21, twice as young as the average Ukrainian soldier.
Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski took a different angle about the same problem.
Ukraine passed the new mobilization law “at least a year too late,” Sikorski told European Pravda in an interview. “It’s best to pass such laws when you have plenty of volunteers and people don’t feel personally threatened. It’s a bit odd, isn’t it? I go to a barber in Warsaw, and my hair is cut by a Ukrainian barber and he seems younger than you and I ask him ‘what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be defending your country?”
Sikorski said his Ukrainian colleagues have told him that they “need people to rotate those brave soldiers fighting at the front.”
Sikorski also told the YES conference that Western Europe should do as Poland has done and deny welfare benefits to draft eligible Ukrainian men in their countries, saving billions of euros annually that could be spent on weapons and helping Ukraine ease its manpower shortage.
In Germany and other countries, “if you are a Ukrainian-protected person, you get 530 euros per month plus rent,” Sikorski said. “You can make over 1,000 euros per month in Germany by attending a German language course. Stop paying those social security payments for people who are eligible for the Ukrainian draft. There should be no financial incentives for avoiding the draft in Ukraine. It is not a human right to be paid to avoid the draft to defend your country. We in Poland don’t do it. If we did, we would have a significant political problem in our country.”
On the same panel, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha said he “fully supports Minister Sikorski’s idea.” He said the time has come to talk about incentives and programs to encourage the return of Ukrainians living abroad to return home when conditions are right. He said that “staying abroad does not make you exempt from mobilization.”
Sybiha estimates that 300,000 Ukrainian men of draft age live among the 1 million Ukrainian nations in Poland. Both governments are trying to organize and train Ukrainians in Poland to enlist in the Ukrainian armed forces. “It will enhance our defense capabilities,” Sybiha said.
Ukraine’s new mobilization law also required about 5 million men of draft age to update their contact information and eliminated some exemptions.
The Ukraine is losing on all scores. Too bad we provoked the conflict. A good read on how the U.S. and NATO policies led to “crisis, war and the risk of nuclear conflict “. “How the West Brought War to an Ukraine “ , Benjamin Abelow. A concise examination of how U.S. and western policy as regards to NATO and Russia since the fall of the Iron Curtain has led us into the present conflict. Do yourself a favor guys and read it. Thanks.
I think there needs to be more conversation about how to actually make people more comfortable with the draft. Yes, drafts absolutely work better when there are still lots of volunteers, for a good reason. But Ukraine is past that point, and with the current policy men of draft age are essentially prisoners in their own homes. This is neither right nor effective. There are a number of things that can be done to change this. I am not an expert, but things like guaranteeing non-front line roles for 6 months for people meeting certain conditions (children, etc.), guaranteed longer lengths of higher quality training (possibly through partnerships with Western counties), guaranteeing maximum terms of service, etc. I think could make a substantial difference. Ukraine’s potential defenders need to be treated like true citizens whose lives and potential sacrifice are truly valued - not like war meat that is hunted down at every opportunity and thrown in the trench. There should be more discussion of this rather than repeated lamentations that no one wants to serve.