The new law on mobilization in Ukraine introduces an electronic form of summons and gives the TCC broader powers

The Ukrainian Armed Forces face serious problems in the areas of personnel and ammunition. To solve this problem, the authorities are beginning to use “carrot” and “stick” methods. In other words, they introduce a system of rewards and punishments to solve the problem. How will it work?

Both the military and politicians unanimously speak about the critical importance of increasing the mobilization reserve.

Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valery Zaluzhny, in his high-profile article for The Economist, points out the need to eliminate legislative gaps for evaders and expand the category of mobilized ones.

President Vladimir Zelensky, in turn, speaks of the need for “urgent changes” in the mobilization process.

“Everyone in Ukraine understands that changes are needed in this area. And this question is not just about the number of those who can be mobilized,” said the head of state.

“This question is about timing - both for everyone who is now in the army for demobilization, and for those who will join the army.”

Parliament, the Cabinet of Ministers, the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff are already working on this issue. Moreover, some innovations to mobilize Ukrainians have already begun to be actively implemented.

Soon, the draft law to strengthen mobilization should be registered in the Rada, and it is planned to adopt it by the end of the year.

Looking for an infantryman

“Vacancy: attack aircraft. Responsibilities: active participation in hostilities and performing various combat missions. Salary: 50-100 thousand hryvnia.”

Is it quite unusual to see such an advert on a job site next to searches for “managers”, “lawyers” and “merchandisers”?

Now this should become a common practice for Ukraine. This fall, the Ministry of Defense began a project to recruit volunteers into the army on large civilian online job search sites. For now these are the sites Lobby X and Work.ua, but, according to the BBC, in the near future it is planned to expand this experiment to other specialized sites.

Everything works quite simply. Military commanders from specific units post vacancies, prescribe conditions and responsibilities, and an interested citizen can choose a specialty and the military unit in which he plans to serve. Thus, the military registration and enlistment office is excluded from this process.

For example, the already mentioned “stormtrooper” vacancies at the beginning of December were placed by the 3rd assault brigade, the “Aidar” battalion, the “Revenge” tactical group and the 37th marine brigade.

The Main Intelligence Directorate is also looking on websites for an “intelligence officer” with the motivation “to destroy the enemy” and “without close relatives - citizens of the Russian Federation.” Salary 70-140 thousand hryvnia plus bonuses.

It should be noted that even regional military registration and enlistment offices are looking for potential military personnel through advertisement sites (now they are called TCC - territorial recruitment centers). For example, in the Chertkovsky district of the Ternopil region, the military registration and enlistment office is looking for an artilleryman, physically healthy and with “stable moral and business qualities.”

Deputy Defense Minister Natalya Kalmykova, who is responsible for this area, says that recruiting companies cooperate with the defense department for free.

For civilians, in turn, it is important to understand what specialty they are willing to accept into the army and into what specific unit, she notes.

“The troops need professional specialists, and people must clearly understand which unit and what military specialty they will go to,” noted a representative of the Ministry of Defense. “Today the Armed Forces of Ukraine need many specialists in civilian specialties. These are drivers, mechanics, gas welders, and builders.”

Money in exchange for a contract

Another way that the authorities have chosen to stimulate the influx of volunteers into the army is financial payments. According to the idea of ​​the Ministry of Defense, in the event of a voluntary signing of a contract with the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the name of a citizen, the bank will immediately open a card on which there will be a certain amount - approximately up to 50 thousand hryvnia.

This project has already begun to be partially implemented. So far, using funds from local budgets.

Thus, at the end of November, the Odessa City Council approved the possibility of paying cash assistance in the amount of 20 thousand hryvnia to those mobilized. True, the amount of funds is calculated per thousand volunteers in 2024.

The Kyiv authorities have introduced payments for 30 thousand recruits who agree to voluntarily mobilize into the Armed Forces.

To promote the ideas of voluntary recruitment, the Ministry of Defense launched a wide promotional campaign.

However, how many military personnel have already been mobilized in this way is unknown. But previous mobilization plans reviewed by the Ukrainian Air Force indicate that the main emphasis will be on expanding the usual “forced” mobilization.

To do this, they want to provide representatives of the TCC with new powers, which in theory will make it possible to more effectively establish procedures for serving subpoenas, detaining and delivering citizens to military registration and enlistment offices.

Fewer exceptions, more restrictions

It should be noted that there is no final version of the draft law regarding mobilization yet. A working group of people's deputies, representatives of the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff is still coordinating its provisions.

The head of the parliament's defense committee, Alexander Zavitnevich, emphasized that there is still no “complete picture”.

“It’s difficult to comment on individual provisions or directions now, because there is no complete picture yet. - he noted to the Ukrainian Air Force. — Some are just someone else’s ideas, without consultation with the military, others are proposals for discussion. We are now trying to develop a comprehensive document.”

However, BBC Ukraine was able to get acquainted with the key ideas of the Ministry of Defense that should be in the bill.

In particular, the circle of citizens entitled to a deferment from the army will be narrowed. First of all, we will talk about depriving this right of those who have a close relative with a Group III disability.

The list of persons who currently have a deferment due to caring for a person with group I and II disabilities will also be reduced.

We are also considering canceling the deferment for those who decide to receive a second or third higher education.

Foreigners who, before receiving Ukrainian citizenship, served in the armed forces of other countries, as well as persons sentenced to prison for committing criminal offenses, can also be registered with the military.

In addition, “mobilization” changes are planned to the Criminal Code and the Code of Administrative Violations, in particular, increasing the period of arrest for violators, fines, as well as introducing the possibility of holding them accountable in absentia.

It is planned that the TCC will receive more tools for checking the military registration documents of citizens on the streets, delivering them to military registration and enlistment offices, and putting them on the wanted list. To do this, they will no longer need the participation of the police.

In some regions, these “innovations” have already been introduced as a kind of “pilot projects” de facto. TCC representatives check documents, serve summonses, and even pick up people liable for military service right on the street.

Citizens will be forced to carry military registration documents with them and present them at the request of a TCC employee or an authorized official of the city authorities.

Among the possible innovations is the introduction of a “Certificate of Defender,” essentially an analogue of a military ID, in the “Diya” mobile application. The person liable for military service will be forced to update current information about himself in this application every 60 days.

A citizen must demonstrate this “certificate” when:

— registration of ownership rights to real estate and movable property,

- marriage/divorce,

- for higher education,

- to receive medical services,

- to cross the state border.

Subpoenas will be able to be served not only in person against signature, but also by sending them by email or registered mail. After notification, the citizen will be required to appear at the TCC within 48 hours.

The presence of these provisions in the future draft law was publicly confirmed by the presidential representative in the Verkhovna Rada, Fyodor Venislavsky. This mechanism is called the “public agenda,” he said.

“These rules should make it easier to receive a summons and not allow people to abuse the fact that he allegedly does not receive a summons and does not violate the law,” he said in an interview with RBC-Ukraine.

On December 7, after the publication of this material, President Vladimir Zelensky dismissed Venislavsky from the duties of his representative in parliament.

Demobilization. Will she?

President Zelensky instructed the military to work on issues of not only mobilization, but also demobilization of Ukrainian Armed Forces fighters. However, the General Staff doubts that this will be possible before the end of the war.

One of the most controversial issues is the demobilization of the military, who have been fighting for almost 2 years. This issue was raised a year ago, but the authorities did not find a way out of the situation.

The problem is that Ukraine has neither the time nor the ability to actually simultaneously dismiss hundreds of thousands of people from the Armed Forces of Ukraine who were mobilized at the beginning of a full-scale invasion.

Discussions are currently ongoing. There are proposals from deputies to set limits of 24 or 36 months of service, but they do not find support among the military command, a government source tells BBC Ukraine.

“The General Staff and other security officials say that they are generally opposed to demobilization as such until the end of the war. We are looking for opportunities to convince them otherwise,” the interlocutor said.

For now, it is only proposed to increase the number of vacations and demobilize conscripts whose service life has expired. That is, these are those soldiers who were called up for military service for 18 months in 2020-21, but due to the introduction of martial law, they were not given the opportunity to retire from the Armed Forces.

In addition, it is planned to expand the list of grounds for dismissal of army personnel in the law. In particular, foreigners who have joined the Armed Forces of Ukraine, military personnel released from captivity (except for those who voluntarily surrendered to the enemy), disabled people of groups I and II, and female cadets will receive this right at their own request.

Which way is correct?

The Ukrainian Air Force asked reserve colonel, expert at the Center for Defense Strategies Viktor Kevlyuk to evaluate the innovations that the Ukrainian authorities plan to introduce. In 2014, when Kyiv was forced to resort to mobilizing military personnel for the first time, it was responsible for this process in the western regions of Ukraine.

The military officer recalls that in 2014-15 alone he filed about 111 thousand lawsuits against service evaders. True, the courts examined only a 10th part of them, and only 1.2 thousand defendants received sentences. Of these, only three were given actual prison sentences.

Accordingly, the specialist believes that without radically changing the system of coercion, the state will not receive an effective procedure for recruiting the army.

“The Constitution writes that defense of the fatherland is a duty. And duty involves coercion. If a state does not want to enforce its own defense, then it will ultimately lose the war.”

Viktor Kevlyuk is very skeptical about the effectiveness of the introduced voluntary military recruitment. “What is the likelihood that an IT professional will choose the profession of a stormtrooper? The Ukrainian Armed Forces now need infantrymen. This war is won by the infantry, not the IT guys,” he says.

In his opinion, everyone who wants to voluntarily join the Armed Forces has already joined.

“Vacancies for the professions most in demand in the Armed Forces of Ukraine will always hang around and either no one or an extremely small number of people will go there: romantics, amateurs, workers and those who have not figured out where they are going... This will in no way solve the problems of the Armed Forces and will not improve at all situation."

The expert admits that even in the case of full-scale mobilization in Ukraine, the human resources of both countries are disproportionate. But he notes that the Ukrainian Armed Forces have a chance to win in a non-standard approach to combat operations.

“We can talk about 2-3 million mobilization resources in Ukraine. The Russian resource is 22-25 million... There is no point in comparing. But we are strong where we conduct asymmetrical actions for which the enemy is not ready.”

At the time the article was published, the Ministry of Defense had not responded to a request from the Ukrainian Air Force regarding changes in the mobilization process.

The head of the pro-government Servant of the People faction, David Arakhamia, previously said that the new law should be voted on at least in the first reading before the end of this year.

However, it should be recalled that even if parliament supports these innovations, they will come into force only after the president’s signature.

And this necessary condition is not at all guaranteed, as shown by the example of the bill on lowering the age of mobilization from 27 to 25 years, which Zelensky has not signed for more than six months.