"War is not a problem of the Armed Forces." Why military says everyone will have to serve

At least 20,000 soldiers, according to the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine, are recruited by the Russian army every month. There are about 400,000 enemy troops in Ukraine.

All signs point to a protracted war with Russia, therefore "each of us will have to defend Ukraine," warns the Ministry of Defense in calling for military registration in a sober manner without "unnecessary dramatization."

"A person who is registered will not necessarily be mobilized. A person who is mobilized will not necessarily find himself at point zero," Ivan Tymochko, chairman of the Ground Forces Reservists Council, assures LIGA.net.

But the current war is a war of resources. That is why the Defense Forces need constant replenishment, Taras Chmut, head of the Come Back Alive Foundation, tells LIGA.net: "There are irrecoverable losses, sanitary losses, and people who drop out for health reasons. Accordingly, we need to replenish."

Here is our brief exploration of the "everyone will fight" narrative.

EVERYONE WILL HAVE TO SERVE IN THE ARMY

More than 1 million people in various bodies are currently involved in the security and defense sector, the Defense Ministry says.

Up to 700,000 people are mobilized into the Armed Forces of Ukraine, up to 60,000 are border guards, up to 90,000 in the National Guard, and up to 100,000 are part of the National Police.

Mobilization in Ukraine will continue as long as martial law is in effect. After November 15, it will be extended again, Fedir Venislavskyi, the president's representative in the Rada and a member of the National Security and Defense Committee, tells LIGA.net: "Most likely, we will vote at the next plenary week."

According to Ukrainian intelligence, the Russian Federation has already concentrated more than 400,000 soldiers on the territory of Ukraine. The Russians are not stopping the process of replenishing their losses.

Therefore, the war and the Ukrainian army are in constant need of people, Taras Chmut, director of the Come Back Alive Foundation, tells LIGA.net.

"There are irrecoverable losses, sanitary losses, and people who drop out for health reasons. Accordingly, if there are losses, we need to recover them. In addition, to conduct offensive actions, we need new units and to man up and deploy the staff of existing units."

Those who are currently at the front are only buying time for those who have not yet joined the army, Pavlo Kazarin, an Armed Forces fighter, tells LIGA.net. So they can better prepare, learn new skills, and choose a unit where they will be most useful.

"In our war, we need three resources: money, weapons, and people. While our allies can supply us with money and weapons, the only people who can win back our country live in Ukraine which means that there are no other soldiers than the citizens who live next to us," he explains.

BUT NOT EVERYONE WILL FIGHT

The lines at military commissariats that existed at the beginning of the full-scale invasion have long since disappeared, and mobilization is difficult, several officers of territorial recruitment centers tell LIGA.net off the record.

Their pessimism does not mean that everything is bad, Chmut clarifies: "There are not enough people. This is a problem that falls on the territorial recruitment centers and other related bodies. This is their hard work, so there is little joy in their assessments."

People are tired of the months of war and are better aware of the risks of military service, so the decline in enthusiasm is logical, Ivan Tymochko, head of the Ground Forces Reservists Council, tells LIGA.net. But when it comes to the war for survival, defense is a matter that concerns everyone.

For every soldier who is directly fighting, there are a certain number of people who support and serve him, Chmut adds.

"This means logistics, training, repair of equipment and weapons. This is a bunch of other people who also need to be in the army," he clarifies. "Plus, from time to time, there are threats that require additional people in the rear. For example, the formation of mobile fire groups, the formation of a group on the border with Belarus or in the northern oblasts."

The situation with the implementation of mobilization plans is not the best, Solomiya Bobrovska, MP from the Golos party and member of the Parliamentary Committee on National Security, Defense and Intelligence, tells LIGA.net.

She admits that there are objective explanations for this.

"The corruption of the military medical commissions and territorial recruitment center systems, shameful cases of brutal physical force, unfair sampling mechanism for mobilization, when some villages are left without men," she lists.

Another problem is the quantity of recruitment without quality, the MP adds. And ignoring the attitude to certain branches and types of the Defense Forces, because "first of all, the ground forces are being manned, to which the territorial recruitment center system is subordinated."

Ivan Tymochko admits that mobilization has turned into a horror story. This is due to both Russian propaganda and internal "speculation on the topic," he believes: "there are more stories of territorial recruitment center representatives being provoked into conflict for the sake of a video on social media."

"I am in no way justifying the cases of harsh behavior of the territorial recruitment center officers," he says. "But when they are approached with rudeness, curses and pro-Russian narratives, with a camera ready and in contact with a lawyer, it looks like a kind of curation.”

DEMOBILIZATION: NO SOLUTION

The lack of demobilization also does not help recruitment, Bobrovska is convinced. The experience of 18 months spent away from loved ones on the front line is very painful: "People are ready to serve, but with the prospect of demobilization. A year, three, five, but there must be light at the end of the tunnel."

Separation from loved ones and demobilization are different stories, Chmut believes. "The possibility or impossibility of going on leave depends on the local commanders. In the units where commanders have established the service well, furloughs are taking place, including when men can go abroad to visit their families," he says.

Another story is that sooner or later demobilization will be inevitable: "This means that in the future we have to be ready to replace these people."

Officers in various commands and the General Staff refuse to talk about demobilization. They say it is the responsibility of the president. LIGA.net's sources in the President's Office also avoid this topic, saying that it should be handled exclusively by the military.

The issue of demobilization of those who have been serving since the beginning of the full-scale invasion is being raised, but there is no solution yet, Venislavskyi admits: "Replacing a million people in the army is a problem. Plus, there are a number of related issues that cannot be resolved quickly."

WHAT NEEDS TO BE CHANGED

For mobilization to be effective, the system of work of territorial recruitment centers needs to be transformed, Bobrovska argues.

"We have to radically change our approaches," says the MP. "Starting with separating the tasks of mobilization and recruitment and ending with the withdrawal of the territorial recruitment centers from the subordination of the Ground Forces. It is necessary to give the mobilized the opportunity to choose a unit and a military specialty. We need to pay more attention to military lyceums and military universities as they are the source of tomorrow's officers in the army."

The format of mobilization and the communication model also need to be changed, Vladyslav Selezniov, a reserve colonel in the Armed Forces of Ukraine and former spokesman for the General Staff, tells LIGA.net. In particular, using the experience of successful recruitment campaigns of the Offensive Guard and the 3rd Assault Brigade.

Adequate communication is needed so that Ukrainians, as an adult society, learn to perceive the issues of war and mobilization pragmatically.

Ukrainian society still believes that "the war concerns someone over there" or that "someone over there should be fighting," adds Taras Chmut, director of the Come Back Alive Foundation. However, in reality, this war concerns everyone, and everyone should be ready to join sooner or later.

"Mobilization has many restrictions: age, health, education, gender, etc. But this does not mean that only a limited group of people should serve," says Chmut. "The war is not a problem of the Armed Forces. War is a problem for every single citizen of Ukraine."