Ukraine changes tactics to attract new recruits • FRANCE 24 English

Ukraine changes tactics to attract new recruits • FRANCE 24 English

at just 22 Twix is already a veteran training new recruits who may be twice his age at least every 10th bullet should be a tracer he says the Ukrainian Army’s biggest problem is not ammunition we haven’t got enough people categorically not enough we need people because the same guys are having to stay too long on the positions psychologically they can’t cope and physically it’s also hard twi’s colleague is became an instructor after he was wounded last Autumn weapons are one thing but what’s crucial is to have motivated people who are not afraid who know that they are going to war and may get injured or even die every Cemetery in Ukraine attests to the country’s losses efforts to replenish the ranks through compulsory mobilization are proving unpopular so the defense Ministry is trying a new approach to encourage voluntary enlistment your current profession where people are being mobilized there’s no choice at all okay they just serving for their country and the the state is choosing this home in which unit and so on here is all about choice this list with you some 20 military job centers like this one have already opened across Ukraine I’ve come to give them a list of vacancies we’ve got and they will find people for those roles it’s very useful I’ve got about 30 a new mobilization law that’s about to enter Force aims to make the draft harder to avoid Bim says he feels calmer coming here than just waiting for his call out papers I’ve been thinking of enlisting for a while but I have no military experience so I’d like to start as a driver and later I’ll be what I’ll be I think a lot of men are realizing enough with sitting at home it’s time to step up while thousands of men were dodging the draft or even fleeing Ukraine in recent months others were signing up voluntarily to the elite third assault Brigade whose Nationwide advertising campaign attracted so many young candidates that it’s able to select only the fittest the defense Ministry hopes to repeat this brigade’s recruiting success across the board that report from France 24’s Ukraine correspondent glier KAG who joins me now from laviv glier what do people complain about really when it comes to this mobilization process it seems like it’s not that they just don’t want to fight well of course some people really don’t want to fight they’re simply afraid and the casualty rates make any fear absolutely understandable but when talking about why they aren’t happy with the mobilization a lot of people do mention other aspects of it that they think are unfair we heard in the report the arbitrariness of it the fact that you just get drafted and then sent wherever they decide to send you the sense of not having any control over it is something that bothers a lot of people I’ve heard of people that I know who’ve really just been drafted and from one day to the next sometimes without even being allowed to go home and get their stuff they’re in the Army and they’re sent to um a brigade that they may have heard nothing about before and where they’re not very happy to be I mean this belies a big issue in the Ukrainian Armed Forces which is that some brigades have a much better reputation than others for the conditions the training they offer the quality of the commanders there are also some commanders who have a very bad reputation we as journalists don’t normally get to see those guys you know the Press offices take us to see the brigades that are better better run and have uh better perhaps more modern-minded uh commanders but we’re constantly hearing about them about certain brigades being worse and people don’t want to go to those brigades and so they want to have more Choice the problem is that of course even the bad brigades do need more people and letting everybody choose where they go is not necessarily going to solve that problem but there are I think a lot of um studies showing that it’s actually just a psychological thing that people like to feel that they’ve got some control some Choice as we saw in the report of Vadim there you know he’s got no military experience he is prepared to fight he is prepared to hold a gun in his hand but he would prefer to start off as a driver to feel like it’s not you know just in at The Deep End right away and I think that’s something that really a lot of people can relate to glier but it is indeed a very difficult context I mean give given all of that what’s the latest you’re hearing now from the front lines well as you know this Russian offensive in harv region is ongoing they crossed the border in two places a few days ago they’ve taken control of a few settlements in that border region the Ukrainian Army admitted today that it had withdrawn to more strategically advantageous positions that’s the euphemism that they usually used but that means they are losing territory and the Russians look like they’re trying to um unite the two places where they cross the border and form one contiguous area in the north of harv region that they control the city of V Chans is very much under threat and may become the first Ukrainian town to be occupied twice because it was occupied in 2022 then liberated later that year the fighting is going on there right now the ukrainians though say the Ukrainian Military Intelligence in particular that they don’t think that the Russians have got the forces necessary or the intention to really go deeper into harv region and that they’re more likely actually to mount new attacks On the Border in another region to the northwest of their Sumi region so there lot of eyes on sui region at the moment and meanwhile the Russians are inching forward every day a little bit more in donet region but I do say inching they’re not making any major gains there for the moment all right goer thanks for that that’s FR 24 is glier CAG reporting from leiv

Apart from the shortages of weapons, Ukraine is also facing a shortage of manpower. The draft age was recently lowered from 27 to 25, and a series of new measures aimed at boosting mobilisation come into force this month. But studies suggest people will be willing to fight if they have more control over the conditions. Report by FRANCE 24’s Gulliver Cragg.
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