No matter how good its weapons and equipment, an army would be nothing without its warriors – the men and women in uniform who are the muscle behind the firepower.
But while ordinary Ukrainians dropped everything and took up arms to defend Ukraine when Russia began its war on Ukraine in the Donbas in 2014, four years later war-weariness has set in.
Official studies show that legions of battle-hardened Ukrainian soldiers and officers are about to quit the army forever, citing dissatisfaction with their thankless service.
Tired of poor social benefits, low and unfair salaries, and exhausted by the deadlocked Russian war in the east, tens of thousands of soldiers are expected to break their military contracts, jeopardizing the fighting capacity of Ukraine’s armed forces.
The situation is so bad that the murmurs of discontent have spread from soldiers’ trenches and smoking corners to the corridors of the Defense Ministry and Cabinet of Ministers.
Money problems
After six waves of compulsory mobilization in 2014 and 2015, the Ukrainian military command in 2016 opted to focus on building a professional army, with troops serving under contract, although conscription was not abolished completely.
To motivate more people to join the army, and to stay, monthly salaries were increased to some Hr 7,000 ($250) for a private, and between Hr 12,000 ($440) and Hr 14,000 ($515) for a mid-ranking officer.
As of early 2018, Ukraine’s armed forces had some 250,000 of active duty personnel, including 168,000 contracted soldiers and officers, which is the limit imposed by the country’s legislation.
But behind the optimistic official reports, trouble has been brewing.
Even with a substantial intake of recruits, tempted by the increased salaries, and the lingering effect of war-time patriotism, none of the combat formations deployed in the Donbas have ever been manned by more than 50 percent of their official full complement of troops.
Besides, official figures show that the pace of recruitment of contract soldiers is falling every year: While some 68,000 people signed up for the army in 2016, only 36,700 did so next year. In the first seven months of 2018, only 17,000 new contracts were signed.
Another alarm bell started ringing when Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in late June 2018 signed into law bill No. 6052 after months of deliberation and heated debate in the Verkhovna Rada.
The document, in particular, allowed those serving open-term wartime contracts (officially titled “contracts until the end of the special period,” meaning until the war is over) to quit after serving for 24 months.
Many soldiers, tired of war and wanting to return home to their families, were pleased by the measure – but for the top command, it has been a huge headache.
On July 11, Ukrainian Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak wrote to Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman to report that in the first half of 2018 alone, over 11,000 contracted soldiers and officers with combat experience had left the army to return to civilian life. More 18,000 will quit by the end of 2018, he added.
Moreover, 36 percent of servicemen polled by the General Staff said that they would not renew their contracts because of “insufficient wage levels,” Poltorak’s letter read. Even after a series of minor salary hikes, an average first-year soldier currently earns some Hr 7,500 ($276) per month, while the country’s average civilian salary in May 2017 is Hr 8,700 ($320).
“This has caused a negative tendency in the armed forces staff support, and the loss of experienced specialists among military personnel,” Poltorak’s letter reads.
To solve the problem, the minister suggested increasing minimum salaries to Hr 9,000 ($330) for private soldiers and Hr 15,300 ($560) for officers by Oct. 1, 2018. However, that would cost some Hr 4.5 billion in additional funding to the Defense Ministry from the state budget.
The armed forces have already spent some Hr 50.6 billion ($2 billion) on salaries, food, and clothing so far this year, which is nearly 60 percent of its total annual budget of Hr 83.3 billion ($3 billion) in 2018.
Leaked to the press, Poltorak’s proposal drew heavy criticism from former Ukrainian soldiers.
Taras Chmut, a former marine and the chief editor of the Ukrainian Military Portal, a defense news website, called the decision “a parade of populism and opaqueness.”
“The Defense Ministry’s manpower policy has failed,” Chmut wrote on his Facebook page on July 31.
“Fighters with combat experience, pilots, technicians, sailors who have served for 10 years on ships, sergeants, and older officers are leaving the army. And what do the ministry’s bright brains do? The simplest and most banal thing – ask for money!”
More trouble
Nonetheless, in a rare occurrence for Ukraine’s military command, the top military leadership is starting to acknowledge that there is a worrying outflow of manpower from the army.
On Aug. 7, the General Staff issued the report that Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak had referred to in his letter to the prime minister.
It showed the Ukrainian army still faces an appalling list of serious problems.
A poll held among 989 military servicepersons, mainly soldiers and sergeants that had recently returned from the war front, uncovered the main reasons that many were refusing to renew their military contracts.
While 36 percent expressed discontent with low salaries, some 43 percent said they objected to excessively long and exhausting deployments in the Donbas war zone, and said they suffered family problems because of being away from home for long periods at a time.
Forty-two percent said they were unhappy with their very poor social security provisions, such as lack of housing. At present, some 46,000 soldiers are still waiting in a decades-long queue to be allocated an apartment for their families. A recently launched Hr 2.6 billion ($95 million) project to build 184 married quarters throughout the country will provide only about 23,000 contractors with basic lodging over the next few years.
But while poor housing remains one of the army’s worst problems, soldiers also complained about the poor condition of the military hardware they had to use in service. Another 21 percent complained about the poor quality of their commanders, and 19 percent were unhappy with the remoteness of their military bases from their homes.
Some 13 percent said they did not see any career prospects in the army.
The report has triggered even louder complaints in the country’s military community on social media.
“All those thousands, tens of thousands of military servicemen who have already quit the army or intend to do so in the near future are a dreadful indictment of our leadership’s defense policy,” Yuriy Kasyanov, a civilian volunteer known for equipping the army’s combat formations with drones, wrote on his Facebook page on Aug. 2.
“The war in our country is continuing into the fifth year, and the enemy is gathering forces for a full-scale invasion,” Kasyanov went on. “But our Defense Ministry is begging for additional finances to make military payments at least a bit more attractive because the people are leaving the army.”
“But what do we expect when they recruit people for the army or for the war as if it was a dirty bad job, or when only a few fight the war, while millions enjoy a peaceful life, and while various government officials, lawmakers, and their kids don’t even serve in the rear, and when all of the ruling and opposition politicians are eagerly trying to outdo each other in crying about peace?”
