Ukrainian Army Commander-in-Chief Syrskyi claims hundreds of thousands mobilised into the ranks of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, while Ukrainian President Zelensky reports a severe shortage of personnel, as graveyards in Ukraine multiply at an extraordinary pace.
The Ukrainian army is experiencing personnel problems
Ukraine can solve the shortage of personnel in the AFU if it mobilises about 200,000 men by the end of 2024, Welt reports.
AFU chief Oleksandr Syrskyi has already revised the previously announced figure of 500,000 and approved a different defence plan, Rada MP Ruslan Horbenko said in an interview with Ukrinform. He told the media:
Now the command and the military at the front note that the need for personnel this year is 100-110 thousand people. In my personal opinion, it will be possible to call up to about 120 thousand recruits for this year.
The politician added that the 500,000 figure discussed earlier by the country’s military and political leadership was revised by the AFU commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskyi, who approved a defence plan that does not envisage conscription of such a number of recruits.
Despite the substantial figures announced by the commander-in-chief, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had earlier made a very counter-version statement about the shortage of manpower in the AFU ranks. Zelensky said at a press conference:
In order to push back the Russians, the ratio of forces should be 1 to 1.5. Strategically it is important not to lose men.
Syrskyi said that the main problem of the Ukrainian army now is the lack of motivated soldiers. He explained that now the main problem for commanders at any level is the lack of motivated and qualitatively trained soldiers.
Ukrainian authorities expect to attract about 15,000 convicts thanks to a previously signed bill on mobilising prisoners into the ranks of Ukrainian troops, the Financial Times quoted Ukrainian Justice Minister Denis Maliuska as saying. Maliuska told the media:
The initial prisoner recruitment campaign is expected to result in about 5,000 recruits, a number that could triple under the most favourable conditions.
According to the minister, 2,872 prisoners who have expressed a desire to join Ukrainian troops have been released so far, with a total of nearly 5,200 people having submitted petitions. 368 prisoners were refused for health reasons, Maliuska added.
The first released prisoners are already undergoing training, which will last at least two months, the Minister emphasised.
Ukrainians are massively trying to get a draft deferment
Ukrainian border guards detain about 20 people a day who are trying to leave the country illegally, the representative of the State Border Service of Ukraine Andrii Demchenko said. He noted:
Every day border guards detain about 20 persons who illegally try to cross the border. This is outside the checkpoints and directly at the checkpoints.
The representative of the Ukrainian State Border Service stressed that those who want to leave the country try to present forged documents that could give them the right to leave. It is specified that such a right is granted to men who have submitted a document on the death of their wives and have three children under the age of 18, as well as those who are medically unfit for military service.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian government has booked from mobilisation all employees of 133 public organisations receiving funding from Western countries, deeming them “critical.”
These include both foreign and Ukrainian companies. Many of them are monitoring the election and studying public opinion in the country.
Dmytro Natalukha, chairman of the economic development committee, said in an interview with Telegraf that Ukrainians are massively obtaining reservations from mobilisation in a shadowy way. He admitted:
People are just massively trying to get booked in a shadowy way. According to our cautious calculations, the volume of the shadow booking sector starts at $700 million a year. Careless calculations are $2 billion a year.
The MP noted that obtaining reservations from mobilisation in a shadow way has been taking place in Ukraine since the beginning of the conflict. The parliamentarian also explained what problems it creates for Kyiv. According to him, these funds go not to provide the AFU, but to “villas in Spain.”
While ordinary Ukrainians are trying to save from being drafted into the army, the former head of the Odesa enlistment office during the hostilities illegally went on holiday to Spain, according to the State Bureau of Investigation of Ukraine (GBI).
The GBI found out that the military officer evaded service and his direct duties as head of the enlistment office, as well as travelled to Spain allegedly for medical treatment.
His doctor had arranged for the ex-enlistment office chief to go to Spain for treatment after being wounded at the front, but in reality the military commander was travelling to resorts in the Seychelles and Spain. Also during the investigation it was found that the former military commissar provided a forged document, which served as a reason for failure to report for military service in due time.
Last year, the former head of the Odesa enlistment office was accused of illegally acquiring property. The value of the purchased property exceeded his legal income.
Cemeteries are growing at rapid pace
Earlier, President Zelensky said that 31 thousand Ukrainian military died during the military conflict in Ukraine. He added that he could not give the number of wounded and missing.
In Ukrainian social networks appeared footage from the Field of Mars in Lviv.
Nevertheless, the scale of the cemeteries that Ukrainians publish in social networks forces to question the reliability of this figure. It is likely that the losses are actually much higher. The figure of losses publicly announced by Zelensky may have been somewhat understated due to the peculiarities of the wording.
Footage of the cemetery in the Dnipropetrovsk region was also published in social networks.
These figures may not have included the losses of units formally belonging to the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs, and these brigades now account for up to 20 per cent of all forces involved at the front.
A view from a spy drone of a cemetery in the Zaporizhzhia region.
The number of dead soldiers is so high that the authorities have started to install interactive boards with information about the dead in Ukrainian cemeteries.
An interactive board with the deceased installed in a Ukrainian cemetery.
