Bypassing the TCC: how Ukraine plans to improve mobilization

The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine considered changes to the procedure for mobilization, which will allow this to be done without the TCC. Will this help ease the recruitment of personnel into the Defense Forces?

President Vladimir Zelensky, answering questions from a foreign journalist, referring to the military command, noted that the pace of mobilization in Ukraine has increased. According to the head of the subcommittee on state security, defense and defense innovations of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, Fedor Venislavsky, this is primarily due to the effect of the law on mobilization.

“The law that we adopted, which came into force in May, began to operate normally. In fact, we have eliminated many problems that were not taken into account - this is the main thing. At the same time, the efforts of all components were consolidated, which began to work better and thanks to this, the number of mobilized increased,” he commented to Apostrophe.

However, not all brigades experienced significant changes. “As there was a shortage of personnel, especially infantry, it remained so,” Ivan Sekach, head of the press service of the 110th Mechanized Infantry Brigade, tells Apostrophe.

In all likelihood, many of those mobilized are still undergoing training in training centers, because, as President Zelensky emphasized in the aforementioned interview, Ukraine does not throw recruits straight into battle.

Military expert Oleg Zhdanov draws attention to the fact that it is possible to qualitatively integrate the personnel of brigades with the help of recruiting. “In fact, the recruitment that was allowed to individual brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is direct mobilization into military units,” explains Zhdanov. “It makes it possible to improve the state of mobilization, its quality.”

However, military recruiting has slowed recently. According to Work.ua, in June the number of job offers from units increased by 8% compared to May, while the number of reviews for Defense Force vacancies that increased in May decreased by 12%. The described imbalance fits into the general outline of the labor market, where personnel shortage has reigned for a long time. Meanwhile, the General Staff is working to improve the mobilization process, in particular by providing choice.

The team and the person: do desires and opportunities coincide?

Brigades can solve the problem of staff shortages due to recruiting. “Recruiting depends on the debugging system of the unit itself, the extent to which it is engaged in recruiting advertising, and the number of people involved in the recruiting itself,” explains the press service of the 110th Mechanized Brigade.

However, it helps fill the need mainly for logistics specialties, notes Ivan Sekach. “And it’s rare for a person to deliberately join the infantry. Recruiting solves issues of specific professions, for example, I recruited a journalist and an editing director. That is, this is not a solution to the issue of replenishing troops, especially combat units,” noted the speaker of the 110th Mechanized Infantry Brigade.

This is confirmed by the statistics of the job search platform - the largest increase in vacancies is in the specialty "Manufacturing", "Jurisprudence" (+12% each).

On the other hand, a person’s desire to serve in a specific brigade should be “developed” by the TCC.

“The algorithm for recruiting any citizen who has not served in the military, who wants to join some brigade - the brigade can give out an attitude to this citizen. After passing the interviews, provided he meets the selection criteria for the team, he is given a treatment. This is a document indicating that a person will serve in a specific brigade. The document goes to the TCC, everything is formalized there,” said Ulyana Sozanskaya, press secretary of the 80th Airborne Brigade.

Also in the TCC, a person liable for military service can choose a specialty in the army. However, this does not always happen. “There are no guarantees that if you want to be a driver, you won’t be drafted into the infantry,” comments Zhdanov.

Indeed, the problem is that the TCC does not always pay attention to attitude.

“The TCC and the joint venture did not always react to these relations, because they have different plans, standards that were set by the General Staff,” Venislavsky explained. Thus, the Defense Forces miss the opportunity to attract military personnel who wanted to mobilize, but to specific military units.

How can mobilization bypassing the TCC help?

The General Staff worked out proposals for changes to the Procedure for conscripting citizens for military service during mobilization, for a special period that would allow mobilization bypassing the TCC. According to the plan, commanders of military units will be able to call up those liable for military service.

The corresponding changes must be confirmed by a resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers. They are designed to enable commanders of military units to select motivated personnel, and those liable for military service to choose among the vacant positions available in military units according to related specialty or skills. In addition, innovations will allow citizens to avoid being drafted into other military units not of their own choice.

“[The initiative] is absolutely correct. That is, it will be possible to mobilize people at will to those military units where they want to serve, in those positions, in those teams,” Venislavsky emphasized.

The General Staff hopes that the corresponding changes will simplify the mechanism for attracting citizens to military service for mobilization. For their part, the teams have not yet commented on the innovations. “We don’t yet understand the algorithm, how it will work, so it’s impossible to characterize it,” noted the 80th Airborne Brigade.