The Ukrainian Defense Forces are short of infantry on the front line. Units are depleted both morally and physically.
The Ukrainian military is facing a critical infantry shortage, leading to exhaustion and low morale on the front lines, soldiers at the front said this week—a dangerous new dynamic for Kiev nearly two years after the bloody war with Russia began.
Nearly a dozen soldiers and commanders told reporters that manpower shortages are their biggest problem now as Russia regains the offensive initiative on the battlefield and escalates its attacks.
The battalion commander of a mechanized brigade that fights in eastern Ukraine said his unit has fewer than 40 infantrymen - soldiers who are in the trenches on the front lines holding off Russian attacks. According to the commander, a fully equipped battalion should number more than 200 people.
Another infantry battalion commander from another brigade said his unit was also exhausted.
The Washingon Post notes that these reports of an acute military shortage come as President Zelensky prepares to replace Ukrainian Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny, with one of the main disagreements being how many new soldiers Ukraine needs to mobilize.
The President's Office declined to comment, referring the question to the Ministry of Defense, which forwarded the question to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The General Staff did not respond to a request for comment.
“The debate in Kyiv about mobilization - and to what extent the country should step it up - has angered soldiers on the front line. Battalion Commander Alexander said that the companies in his unit are, on average, staffed at about 35 percent of requirement. The commander of the second battalion of the air assault brigade said that this is typical for units performing combat missions,” the publication writes.
Answering the question of how many new soldiers he received, not counting those who returned after being wounded, Alexander said that over the past five months five people have been sent to his battalion. He and other commanders said recruits tend to be poorly trained, creating a dilemma over whether to send someone immediately to the battlefield because reinforcements are sorely needed, even though they are likely to be wounded or killed due to a lack of necessary knowledge. .
“At the heart of it all is the lack of people. Where are we going? I don't know. There is no positive outlook. Absolutely none. This will end in an abundance of deaths, a global failure. And most likely, I think, the front will collapse somewhere, as it collapsed for the enemy in 2022, in the Kharkov region,” Alexander noted.
One senior official said mobilization stalled when Zelensky fired the heads of all of Ukraine's regional military registration and enlistment offices in August, citing corruption. Commanders on the ground confirmed that few new people had arrived since the fall.
Another problem is the shortage of ammunition and weapons. The commander, whose unit was recently transferred to a new sector of the front in eastern Ukraine, said that he received 10 shells for two howitzers, journalists write.
The personnel shortage could have a domino effect, Ukrainian military personnel say.
“The lack of rotations is a problem for all Ukrainian military, and not just for the infantry on the line. Soldiers may get a few days off to go home and see their families. They say they still have the motivation to fight the Russian occupiers, but they also need rest and more people nearby,” the authors of the material noted.
Battalion commander Alexander says: “They need to be replaced by someone. There is no one to replace them, so they sit there longer, their morale drops, they get sick or get frostbite. They're running out. There is no one to replace them. The front is cracking. The front is falling apart. ... Why can't we replace them? Because we have no people, no one joins the army. Why doesn't anyone join the army? Because the state did not tell people that they needed to join the army. The state was unable to explain to people that they needed to join the army. Those who knew that they had to go, they had all already fled.”
Sergei, 41, a platoon leader fighting in Avdeevka, says he and his men are rarely rotated after three days. More often than not, five days pass, or even ten, the publication writes.
“People are exhausted both mentally and physically. It is very difficult, weather conditions, constant shelling. It has a big impact on a person’s psyche,” he said.
