Ukraine resorts to shaking down nightlife spots for recruits as troop numbers fall
Summary
Manpower is the decisive factor in a drawn-out war of attrition—with Russia’s population four times the size of Ukraine’s.KYIV, Ukraine—Ukraine is widening its dragnet in the search for troops to shore up its creaking front lines, conducting spot checks of men at upscale venues including a concert and a wine store in Kyiv and a street of hip eateries in Odesa.
The stepped-up efforts show the difficulties Ukraine faces in raising new soldiers to backfill front-line losses as the war approaches the three-year mark. Tensions are rising in society over how some prominent figures, including state prosecutors, evade the draft through medical exemptions, leading President Volodymyr Zelensky’s attorney general to resign last week.
On the front line in the east, Russians are using superior firepower and manpower to squeeze forward against Ukrainian forces that were already overextended before they invaded Russia’s Kursk region in August.
Zelensky has been trying to secure more weapons and security guarantees from the U.S. to turn the tide against Moscow. But at home his biggest immediate problem is getting enough troops to hold the line. Most men who wanted to join the armed forces have already done so and enlisting more is only getting harder. Many are in hiding or have fled the country illegally to escape the draft.
“There is no easy solution," said Mathieu Boulègue, a nonresident senior fellow with the Transatlantic Defense and Security Program at the Center for European Policy Analysis, a think tank based in Washington. “That is unfortunately a critical issue that you cannot solve by sending stuff over, short of sending Western troops," which isn’t likely.
Russia, too, is losing men more quickly than it can replace them, according to Western estimates. Moscow has turned to North Korea for additional troops. Still, Russia has a population four times the size of Ukraine’s and an authoritarian system that allows it to strong-arm citizens into service.
Ukraine has struggled to replenish its ranks since a summer offensive last year in which thousands of troops were sacrificed for minimal gains. Despite a growing shortage of infantry, Kyiv dithered until spring of this year before lowering the age of compulsory military service to 25 and imposing additional penalties for those dodging the draft. Recruitment numbers initially tripled, according to military analysts, but have since fallen back.
Military official Vasyl Rumak said the number of soldiers-in-training had lately fallen to 20,000 a month compared with 35,000 after the mobilization law was passed in the spring. Recruitment numbers are secret and might be different, a spokesman for Ukraine’s general staff said of the figures.
Authorities have ramped up checks in public places. Draft officers had previously targeted smaller cities and villages in an apparent effort to avoid inflaming social tensions or causing political problems for the government. But their recent presence at upscale venues in the capital and other big cities suggests a shift.
As fans of Okean Elzy, one of Ukraine’s most popular bands, poured out of a concert hall in the capital this month, draft officers were waiting by the exits. Some bystanders yelled “shame" at the officers, who were checking compliance with a law passed in the spring that obliged all men eligible for military service to register with the authorities. Police were filmed apprehending a young man who was shouting, “Why are you grabbing me?"
Days earlier, authorities conducted checks outside a luxury grocery store, Goodwine. In the port city of Odesa, officers entered restaurants along a street where they rarely ventured before.
Others saw justice in checks at popular hangouts, where relatively normal life continues despite the difficult situation at the front.
“This is what a fair mobilization looks like—when people are not only taken from villages and small towns, but also from large cities where people calmly go to concerts and restaurants," said the deputy commander of Ukraine’s 3rd Assault Brigade, Maksym Zhorin.
Along the front line, Ukrainian forces say they are desperately short of men despite the mobilization drive. Defending territory requires fewer soldiers than offensive operations, but the incursion into Russia’s Kursk region stretched depleted units in the east even further. Under pressure, the number of troops abandoning their positions or deserting the military has increased, according to the prosecutor’s office.
With the supply of men dwindling, Kyiv has faced pressure from Western allies to lower the age of conscription further.
Several members of Ukraine’s parliament have also called for the minimum draft age to be lowered, but Kyiv says that would compound a demographic crisis that threatens the country’s future. The country has already lost more than a quarter of its 40 million prewar population due to Russian occupation, war deaths and millions fleeing abroad. The cohort of men aged 18 to 25 is particularly sparse due to a baby bust following Ukraine’s independence in 1991.
Ukrainian officials say they have enough new recruits to replace losses and build up some reserves. The French military recently began training and equipping soldiers from a Ukrainian brigade in France.
But officials in Kyiv also say that expanding mobilization isn’t effective without more Western supplies to arm new recruits properly. Of the 14 fully equipped brigades Zelensky has said are needed to turn the tide, Ukraine hasn’t been able to outfit even four, he told CNN in an interview last month.
“Although there is evidence that Ukraine is building additional operational reserves and forming new brigades, the key question is whether it can successfully do both: create new brigades while addressing the manpower shortages at the front line," said Vienna-based military analyst Franz-Stefan Gady.
For Ukraine, mobilization is not only a military problem, but also a growing social and political issue.
Among soldiers who have been serving on the front line for nearly three years, resentment is building against men avoiding military service. Zelensky is under pressure to show that the burden of the war is being shared evenly across society after many scandals involving officials alleged to have taken bribes in exchange for draft exemptions.
Law enforcement this month found nearly $6 million in cash at the home of the head of a medical commission for the Khmelnytskiy region. Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin resigned after dozens of officials were found to have abused their position to receive disability status, allowing them to avoid conscription.
“This is truly an internal enemy," said Zelensky in a video address before he issued a decree dissolving medical examination commissions by the end of the year.
Ukraine is also due to conduct an audit of companies that have won exemptions from the draft for employees designated essential.
At the same time, Ukraine is seeking to address issues with recruitment and training that have deterred some men from enlisting in the army. Allowing individual battalions to enlist volunteers directly has given new recruits more agency in the process. Billboards for the country’s most famous units line the streets, advertising effective training and the ability to choose positions.
There are plans to revamp and extend training from one month to six weeks and create a school to prepare instructors.
At a training center near the eastern front, most of the recruits have been mobilized, and don’t want to go to war, said an instructor who asked to be identified by his call sign, Fury, in line with military protocol. “The biggest challenge is to change their mindset."
The shortage of men willing to fight means those serving have little prospect of being demobilized except through injury or death.
A soldier who publicly quit his unit to draw attention to the issue last month was recently detained on charges of desertion.
“When all citizens feel that the same responsibility for the country rests on their shoulders, maybe then something will change," Serhiy Hnezdilov said in an interview with a Ukrainian channel before his detention.
Write to Isabel Coles at isabel.coles@wsj.com