Did you know it's against the law for any male (age 18-60) to leave Ukraine? Of course it's estimated that almost one-quarter of the population has fled the country, 40% have been driven from their homes.
The nation has run out of young men to fight and the West has run out of artillery to send. Many of the shells, rockets, and other munitions Zelensky wants to have over a one-year wait to produce. Meanwhile, it is obvious that Putin currently occupies the mineral-rich, Russian-speaking territory he wants (Donbas) and has no intention of ever leaving.
The war's over, Joe doesn't realize it yet.
Ukraine’s Battered Army Grapples With Growing Troop Shortage
Efforts to draft young men are hampered by politics, demographics and Ukrainians’ increasing reluctance to join the military
By Nikita Nikolaienko and Ian Lovett, WSJ
Updated March 24, 2024
KYIV—Ukraine’s armed forces desperately need fresh troops to hold back massed Russian offensives. But political dithering is leaving front-line units threadbare.
A bill aimed at expanding the draft in Ukraine is stuck in Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, after months of debate.
The proposed changes are rather meager: The age of conscription would be lowered to 25 from 27. In addition, soldiers would be eligible to leave the military after three years of service, and punishments would be imposed for men who avoid registering for the draft.
Yet the Rada, faced with large parts of the populace who are unwilling to fight, is struggling to approve even these modest tweaks to the law.
“We’re struggling to lower the age to 25—it’s an unpopular decision,” said Fedir Venislavskyi, a member of the Rada in President Volodymyr Zelensky’s ruling party, who has been one of the law’s leading backers. “We need to increase the number of people who can be mobilized.”
Alongside a shortage of ammunition, the lack of soldiers is Ukraine’s biggest challenge in a year where commanders say their aim is to hold firm and rebuild forces. Russia, with a population more than three times the size of Ukraine’s, is expending thousands of troops each week in assaults and is able to replenish with around 30,000 fresh troops each month, according to Ukrainian military intelligence. Still, Russian forces are struggling to advance since seizing the eastern city of Avdiivka in February.
An overwhelming majority of Ukrainians support the government in continuing the fight against Russia. But the failure of Ukraine’s major counteroffensive last year, and the loss of tens of thousands of soldiers in the process, has shaken Ukrainians’ confidence that they can retake territory, in addition to depleting their manpower.
Early in the war, Ukraine was able to rely on volunteers who flooded into recruitment offices. Those waves have ebbed. And Zelensky has also acknowledged the need to give soldiers who have been fighting for two years a rest.
But the draft has been riddled with dysfunction.
Ukraine’s military has nearly 600,000 personnel, according to estimates from Zelensky. Most are in support roles away from combat at the front. Zelensky said in December that the military has requested 500,000 more troops, although commanders said it didn’t need all of them immediately.
Men between the ages of 18 and 60 have been barred from leaving the country since the outset of the invasion. But only those who are at least 27 years old have been eligible for the draft, leaving most of the country’s young men exempt.
Last summer, Zelensky dismissed all the regional heads of recruitment following a series of corruption scandals. Hundreds of thousands of men continue to avoid registering for the draft. Recruiters often set up checkpoints in the street, stopping fighting-age men and sending them east to the trenches.
Some men say they were beaten or detained for days until they signed enlistment papers. Still, hundreds of thousands of men have avoided registering at the local draft office. Videos circulate online showing young men running from military recruiters in cities across the country.
“I can’t say I feel like a draft dodger,” said Oleh Sinelchenko, 24. Both his brothers joined the military early in the war, but they have warned him against even registering for the draft, telling him that once he is enlisted, there is no way out. “I didn’t receive any call,” Sinelchenko said. “Most of the country is sitting at home pretending that nothing is happening.”
Groups from all parts of society are appealing to the Rada for exemptions under the new law. Businesses have proposed paying a tax to keep their workers off the front line.
Students say they should be allowed to finish their studies before serving. In addition, a baby bust following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 means there are simply fewer Ukrainians in their 20s than in previous generations.
“I understand we have a war in our country, and we need people. But I’m a mother, and I don’t want to send my son to war,” said Khrystyna Moliichuk, 47, whose son is 23. “He’ll continue his studies at university, which gives him an exemption.”
Officials in the U.S.—where a $60 billion aid package for Ukraine has been stalled for months in Congress—have also been making noise about the unusually high age of conscription in Ukraine. The age of conscription in the U.S. and many other Western countries is 18.
Last May, the Rada approved a law lowering the draft age to 25, but Zelensky never signed it. Roman Kostenko, a member of the Rada from the liberal Holos opposition party, said he voted for that bill, but the politics of lowering the conscription age have grown more difficult since then. A bill put forward in December to reshape conscription was withdrawn amid public opposition.
“If I stood in the middle of the Rada and said, ‘Let’s lower the age to 21,’ it would have been rejected immediately,” Kostenko said. “This is an unpopular decision. It’s the president’s job to make unpopular decisions in times of war. You cannot shift the responsibility for them to someone else.”
Zelensky, in December, said “maybe” he would support lowering the age of conscription to 25 and announced that he had ordered the military to prepare a mobilization plan. “This is a very sensitive matter,” he said. Adding 500,000 new soldiers, he said, would cost billions.
Since then, the president hasn’t directly commented on the current bill. A spokesman for the president’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment.
As the Rada debates amendments, soldiers and their families are clamoring for reinforcements. Some 31,000 troops have been killed in action, according to Zelensky, and military analysts estimate the total is far higher. Tens of thousands more troops have been injured, with many no longer able to fight. Those who remain are exhausted and short on artillery shells, with deliveries from the U.S. delayed.
Olha Denysenko has been helping organize protests in Kyiv, demanding a rest for men like her husband, who volunteered at the start of the war and has now spent two years at the front. During that time, he has had only 20 days of vacation, she said.
Olha Denysenko has been helping organize protests in Kyiv, demanding a rest for men like her husband, who has now spent two years at the front; in Kyiv, people walked beside Soviet sculptures in the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War.
“The state has sacrificed our husbands, forgotten them,” Denysenko, 35 years old, said. “It’s a huge burden, and it should be distributed evenly, not all dumped on the shoulders of those who agreed to defend the country.”
Professional Ukrainian soldiers say they are especially in need of young men, since many of those who have been drafted are middle-aged.
“You can’t fight with old men,” said Ihor Belous, a 31-year-old who has been in the military for 12 years. Now, many of his comrades are in their 40s, he said, and need more time to recover from each mission. “Everyone needs to accept that this is going to be a long war…Volunteers are not endless.”
Write to Ian Lovett at ian.lovett@wsj.com
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