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As it prepares to enter the third year of full-scale war against Russian invaders, Ukraine needs significantly more troops.
But given the risk of a public backlash, the task of raising men for the armed forces has become something of a hot potato in Kyiv, tossed back and forth between Ukraine’s political leaders and its top military commanders.
Neither side appears to be willing to take full responsibility for drafting hundreds of thousands of perhaps reluctant Ukrainians to serve in a grim, grinding war.
The tussle began on December 19 when President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said at his year-end press conference that Ukrainian army chiefs had requested the conscription of 450,000 to 500,000 men. His announcement was extraordinary in two ways.
First, he put a figure on it. Since Russia’s invasion in February 2022, Ukraine has kept secret the number of people it has recruited, whether voluntarily or through compulsion, just as it has the number of casualties.
Second, Zelenskyy stressed this was a request from the top brass, one that he had not yet granted. Before approving it, he wanted a detailed plan from his commanders about why so many recruits were needed and what that would mean in terms of troop rotations at the front.
“I need specifics,” he said. “This is a very serious number.”
Ukrainian men between the ages of 18 and 60 are barred from leaving the country and are supposed to register with military recruitment offices for possible call-up. However, under current rules, only men who are 27 or older can be conscripted. A draft bill to lower that age to 25 was published in December, given that the rules governing mobilisation are the responsibility of parliament.
Zelenskyy’s Servant of the People party, however, seems loath to take ownership of the bill. Its MPs were instructed not to comment on it and instead refer journalists’ questions to military commanders, according to the Ukrainian Truth media outlet.
The day after the conscription legislation was published, General Valeriy Zaluzhny, commander-in-chief of the armed forces, was wheeled out to defend it in a TV interview and at his first press conference since February 2022.
Up until then, Zaluzhny had been largely kept out of the media spotlight, with a few exceptions, notably a November interview with The Economist in which he described the war at a “stalemate”, a taboo word in government circles which enraged the president.
In his defence of the recruitment drive, Zaluzhny said the military needed more men and had been included in the drafting of new legislation, but stressed that he was not responsible for all the details.
Asked about the 450,000-500,000 number cited by Zelenskyy, the general said he “did not make any request for any figures”. Revealing any numbers would amount to divulging a military secret, he added.
He also distanced the armed forces from provisions in the bill to expand the conscription orders to Ukrainians living abroad and to impose tougher sanctions on draft dodgers. These were questions for lawmakers to address, he added.
“We are an army, and we should fight, not interfere in the lives of civilians,” he said.
Zaluzhny’s appearance to explain the mobilisation drive was necessary, says Mariia Zolkina of the Democratic Initiatives Foundation think-tank in Kyiv, because Ukraine’s “political authorities attempted to distance themselves from this step and redirect responsibility to military leadership”.
Blaming the army for a potentially unpopular move was “destructive and wrong”, Zolkina wrote on X.
Relations between Zelenskyy and his top military commander were tense even before autumn, when the failure of Ukraine’s counteroffensive sparked rumours of the general’s imminent dismissal. Some military officers say differences over strategy and tactics are to be expected in a gruelling conflict.
But some in Zelenskyy’s circle see Zaluzhny, who is highly popular with the Ukrainian public, as a potential political rival.
Mass conscription for a war of attrition is always going to be a hard sell.
Even an autocrat like Russian President Vladimir Putin balked at mass mobilisation for months until battlefield setbacks forced his hand in the autumn of 2022.
Zelenskyy’s eagerness to share with his top commanders the burden of responsibility for a new recruitment push shows that 2024 will be a more difficult year on the home front as well as at the front line.
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