The Desperate Search for Soldiers When Nobody Is Left

The year 2023. Commander-in-Chief – Zaluzhnyi. He says 500,000 people need to be mobilized. Those in power aren’t very keen on listening to him. To force him to justify his position, they send him to his first (and last) open press conference since the culture of off-the-record briefings took root in this war.

A new mobilization law is being drafted. Part of society is waiting for a demobilization clause and the implementation of specific terms of service. Concurrently, a public narrative attack begins against Zaluzhnyi.

The army fights on. Russia is destroying Ukrainian units near Zaporizhzhia, in Bakhmut. Almost the entire front line is active. Where the front leaks, separate battalions are thrown in to plug the gap: Territorial Defense or Air Assault.

Criticism pours into the information space: why is Syrskyi, commanding the ‘Khortytsia’ group, fighting with isolated battalions and using them to plug holes? Public erupt with scandals about ‘wiping out the TRO and DShV.’ They push hard for Zaluzhnyi’s dismissal.

2024: Sirskyi Takes Over the Army

The year 2024. Syrskyi is Commander-in-Chief. He is supported in office by the very people who wanted Zaluzhnyi removed. A new mobilization law is passed. One that contains no demobilization provision. Instead, it features service deferments and laughable fines for violating military registration rules. You can just pay 17,000 to 25,000 hryvnias and ‘settle’ it.

The first public attacks on the TCK (Territorial Recruitment Centers) begin. Stories about ‘busification’ (forced recruitment into vans) go viral. They are accused of violating human rights.

The army fights on. Russia is destroying Ukrainian forces near Avdiivka. It’s loud in Vuhledar. The first cases of mass AWOL within the TRO become public. For the first time, commanders cautiously begin to speak openly in the public sphere about the shortage of personnel.

Mobilization is at an insufficient level. Social media sees a rising wave of videos showing how draft evaders escaped abroad. The government remains silent. Responsibility is shifted onto law enforcement and border guards, who are supposed to catch these ‘Tysa-crossers.’ Or rather, pull their bodies from the water.

The TCK receives subsequent mobilization quotas. Unattainable ones. Stories emerge of men who do not leave their homes. Stories appear about the exemption (reservation) of defense industry workers. Municipal workers. Medics. Media figures. Circus performers.

The Commander-in-Chief and the General Staff look for people. A decision on ‘infantry-fication’ is approved. Rear units and Air Defense receive orders to surrender a specific number of personnel to replenish front-line units. People are sent from rear positions of front-line units straight into the trenches. In some places, even cooks are sent. The number of AWOL cases grows. Few from the rear want to go into the trenches. A growing problem emerges: these fighters are insufficiently trained for the realities of modern warfare.

The Verkhovna Rada allows certain categories of prisoners to mobilize into the ranks of the Armed Forces. In practice, those selected from correctional facilities are not always healthy and not always stable. The army is still fighting. The front shifts near Avdiivka. Toretsk begins to crumble.

2025: Corps Reform and Assault Units

The year 2025. The TCK continues to receive quotas. Mobilization becomes increasingly unmanageable. The Government of Ukraine permits the unhindered departure abroad for men aged 18 to 22. Inmates are recruited for the front line in ever-greater numbers. Front-line units are initially forced to take this category of personnel. Later, they begin rejecting them en masse. They live by different laws of life. The military is unfamiliar with these laws. Assault troops are familiar with them, however.

Assaults and murders targeted at TCK staff occur. This behavior is tolerated in the public space. The government is silent. The President is silent.

The army fights on. The front line spans 1,200 km. The TCK mobilizes the sick. People with HIV, hepatitis, and methadone users. And they continue to recruit from prisons.

The military rejects these categories. They are difficult to manage. The ‘older’ seasoned brigades remember the history with chronic alcoholics during the ATO (Anti-Terrorist Operation era). They do not want a repetition. The pits, the isolation boxes where such individuals were held because they were unstable. Because in a state of intoxication, they posed a lethal threat to fellow soldiers, which previously led to mass casualties. Assault units do take these categories. Often because they are offered no one else.

These units are being expanded. In public interviews, the Commander-in-Chief declares the need for troop flexibility and constant ‘counter-assaulting’ of the enemy wherever they are thin, in order to exhaust them.

The tactic of plugging holes where the front leaks becomes deeply entrenched (as horrific as that sounds). In the ‘counter-assault’ variant, the DShV and separate assault regiments are deployed. In the hole-plugging tactic, separate assault battalions are used. We are all still in 2025.

The corps reform launches. Not all ‘native’ brigades are assigned under the command of these newly formed corps. Those that are assigned are not always well-trained or fully equipped. Another phase of ‘leaking front sectors’ begins—assault troops are deployed to stop the ‘leak.’

The assault units did not appear out of thin air either. These are the very same former TRO units that proved themselves better than others in the battles of the first years of the full-scale invasion. The contingent there is mixed: 2014 volunteers, businessmen, and an element that did not fit into the more established ‘older’ brigades. Because the laws of the criminal underworld do not always coexist with the laws of the army.

But what do you do if members of the criminal world want to fight, and the TCK has mobilized drug addicts? You create separate units for them. As the saying goes: ‘If you want to take 5 healthy fighters, you must take an additional 10 drug addicts along with them, because we mobilized them to meet an unattainable quota.’

Because there was a demand from higher command to expand the assault regiments. Although on paper they are regiments, in reality, some are essentially divisions. Admittedly, it was a mistake to draw in the criminal element, drug users, and other distinct categories of people all at once.

We are still in 2025. Narratives about the lack of training among commanders and the ‘wiping out’ of personnel are scaled up in the public space. The command tier is far from ideal in many units, and even more so in newly created ones.

The successful, meticulously planned operations of the Air Assault Forces, which often see zero casualties, also have an origin. It is not just about education, traditions, and the maroon-beret brotherhood where officers come from specialized academies and are hardened in battle within the DShV. It is also because, since 2014, the paratroopers underwent joint training with NATO regarding operational planning, and those standards remain functional today.

And who commands assault regiments? Volunteers who rapidly rose through the career ladder to command positions. Because that is often what happens in war. War creates rapid social elevators. The will of the higher command to form new units facilitates this.

2026: Human Shortages at the Front

Finally, we arrive in 2026. A year of technology and human shortages at the front. The Ministry of Defense is finally introducing set terms of service. They call them contracts. In reality, they are defined terms of service. Everyone is waiting for data on the popularity of these contracts and whether they will improve mobilization.

Information of human rights violations appear in several assault regiments. Decisions must be made at the state level to revise the norms of mobilization and draft exemptions. Torture and deaths must be investigated without exception, and the guilty must be punished.

Why the medical commissions mark sick people as ‘fit’ also demands an explanation. But the answer is already clear—there are no men left for the front.

Originally published in Ukrainian by Yulia Kiriyenko, a frontline journalist for TSN. This English version was translated and edited by the MilitaryLand editorial team.