Ukraine wound up the sixth part of its partial mobilization campaign on Aug. 17, and experts say it’s been the least successful one so far.
Starting on June 19, the two-month long mobilization drafted only 60 percent of the targeted number of men into the Ukrainian army, or 13,000 out of a planned 25,000.
The mobilization was not aimed at increasing the size of Ukraine’s army. Instead, paratroopers, tankmen and artillerymen who were called up for military service last year were to have been demobbed and replaced by fresh draftees.
Experts blamed a fall in patriotism in Ukraine for the failure of the sixth mobilization.
“By the end of the six wave (of mobilization), the government had managed to call up only 13,000 out of 25,000 people,” said Mykola Sungurovsky, Director of Military Programs at the Razumkova Center non-governmental think tank. “If the government doesn’t want to take charge of the war, there’s no use asking the people to do it instead.”
But the deputy head of the Ukrainian General Staff’s mobilization department, Olexander Pravdyvets, thinks the problem is not just one of a lack of patriotism.
“Draft evaders usually tend not to open the door to accept their call-up papers. They quit their jobs, or even flee the country,” he said at a briefing on Aug. 18.
Although Pravdyvets said the government has no plans to implement a seventh or an eighth conscription campaign this year, Deputy Minister of Defense Petro Mekhed said a further escalation of the conflict in the war zone might force the government to call up more people.
“Depending on the situation in the east of Ukraine, it is possible that there will be a seventh, eighth and ninth (conscription campaign),” Mekhed said at a briefing on Aug. 11.
One way out of Ukraine’s conscription problems might be for the country to have an entirely professional army working on contract, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said on July 30 in comments on his Facebook page.
“It’s much more effective to create a smaller, but more professional army, well trained and equipped,” Avakov. “We can’t afford not to have professional army.”
Presidential Adviser Yury Biryukov told the Hromadske television channel in an interview on Aug. 4 that such an army was beyond Ukraine’s current means. “It will cost approximately Hr 100 billion per year. How would it be possible, given that the overall Ukrainian budget is Hr 40 billion?” Biryukov said.
Around 100,000 people were recruited during the three conscription campaigns in 2014. As a result, the Ukrainian Armed Services increased its overall strength from 130,000 to 232,000 soldiers.
The government had planned to increase this to 250,000 in 2015.
Kyiv post staff writer can be reached at [email protected]
