Ukrainian Army To Use Commercial Recruitment Firms For More Targeted Conscription

 

As Ukraine prepares for another winter at war with neighboring Russia, despite widespread exhaustion at the front and throughout society, the government plans to reform its conscription practices in an effort to maintain combat capabilities.

A senior official said that the modifications will involve the employment of private recruitment agencies to carry out more targeted conscription and to convince conscripts that they will be deployed in roles that match their skills rather than simply sent to the front.

The secretary of Ukraine’s security council, Oleksiy Danilov, told the Guardian that “now we have a new minister with a new approach.” President Volodymyr Zelensky fired defense minister Oleksii Reznikov in September.

Rustem Umerov, who spent the early part of the war working on fruitless negotiations with Russia, has taken over a scandal-plagued ministry. Umerov’s ministry is likely to release a bundle of new mobilization policies this week, according to Zelensky on Friday.

Danilov stated that the army will use recruitment businesses to locate persons with specialized capabilities as well as to dissuade competent Ukrainians who want to help the military but do not want to go to war from attempting to dodge the draft.

The secretary of Ukraine’s security council acknowledged a recruiting problem, but said that Russian propaganda exaggerated the magnitude of the problem. “Russia is trying to heat up this issue … There are always problems in life, let’s not overestimate it,” he went on to say.