Europe

Ukraine-Russia war: Ukraine’s commander criticises pace of drafting new soldiers

Ukrainian military has scaled back some operations due to lack of foreign assistance, says brigadier general

A man inspecting the site of an overnight drone attack in Odesa, southern Ukraine. Photograph: EPA

Mon Dec 18 2023 - 13:51

Ukraine’s commander-in-chief has criticised the pace of drafting new soldiers as too slow in the face of uncertainty about Western aid and Russian moves to boost the size of its own military.

The authorities in Kyiv are struggling to increase troop numbers and attract volunteers to make progress on the battlefield after the failure to deliver a breakthrough during an autumn offensive. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has delayed signing a bill that lowers the conscription age since June and asked his top military officials to come up with a comprehensive plan to mobilise more soldiers.

“This is a problem for the guys fighting on the front line,” Gen Valeriy Zaluzhnyy told RBC-Ukraine in unscheduled remarks to media during a public event in Kyiv. “They have to be replaced by someone.”

Ukraine needs to bring mobilisation to levels seen in the earlier phases of the war, he said.

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Aides to Mr Zelenskiy were in September forced to play down speculation about a rift between him and Gen Zaluzhnyi after the commander warned of a “stalemate” in the war. The president has dismissed all of the regional heads of military recruitment offices and said more than 100 investigations into officials was opened amid allegations of corruption.

The campaign to sack recruitment officers has left Ukraine’s military without people who could effectively manage the draft, Gen Zaluznyi said Monday. “Those were professionals, they knew how to do it, but they aren’t there now,” RBC cited the commander as saying.

In contrast the Kremlin announced earlier this month that Russian president Vladimir Putin had signed a decree to expand the country’s armed services to 2.2 million people, saying the move was due to the war in Ukraine and the “expansion” of Nato (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation).

The war is approaching its two-year mark as Ukraine’s much-anticipated counteroffensive has so far failed to deliver a breakthrough after Russian troops built strong defensive lines. While Mr Zelenskiy has said he will press on with fighting, further funding from the US and the EU remains in doubt. Republican legislators have held up a $60 billion US package and Hungary has blocked €50 billion in EU funding for Kyiv.

A drop in foreign military aid to Kyiv is having an impact on the battlefield, with a shortage of artillery shells being a “very big problem”, Reuters reported, citing Ukrainian Brig Gen Oleksandr Tarnavskyi. Ukraine is receiving insufficient volumes of ammunition and has to redistribute them, downscaling military tasks, he said, without providing details. – Bloomberg

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