Are the Ukrainian Armed Forces turning into an army of elderly and sick?

The outcome of the July NATO summit turned out to be a disappointment for Ukraine. It was again denied membership in the bloc.  Ukraine can join NATO under condition that Russia’s war in Ukraine must end first .  This was completely predictable. Nevertheless, many Ukrainians harbored a timid hope that the West would cease to be just an active observer of the Ukrainian-Russian war. They hoped the West would help Ukraine not only with money and weapons, but would also take the exhausted country under its direct military protection, that would in turn, they presumed, lead to a speedy end of the war. However, big politics is driven by pragmatism and self-interest. The West does not need direct confrontation with nuclear Russia. It is much easier to play geopolitical games using Ukrainians as pawns. But, the problem is that there are fewer and fewer of them. Ukrainian military draft offices are squeezing out the last remaining human assets from those in the male population trapped in the country*, who do not have a firm military service exemption, a postponement, or simply did not pay the right people off (for instance, greased the palm of the draft office’s head or the draft office’s chief physician to avoid being drafted). And, now, Ukrainians between the ages of 50 and 60 are being massively mobilized, as well as those with physical limitations. However, there are almost no healthy people in this age category, given that in Ukraine, the average life expectancy of men is only 65 years.

It's a sad picture, isn't it? But this is only an initial glance. The details that I will tell you now are even darker. Those details did not come from online search results, social networks posts or virtual interactions. They came firsthand from speaking directly, face to face with those who have just been mobilized and those Ukrainian soldiers that have been fighting for a long time.

"I was building a bridge, they picked me up right at the work site and drafted me”

Some of our readers probably know that Ukrainian’s draft offices distribute draft notices to all male pedestrians (of military age) right on the streets and use force against those “stubborn” people that try to resist. But, believe me, it's already yesterday! Now, a real hunt is being organized for potential recruits, resembling either WWII German roundups, or African slave hunts.

A bridge was being built in the Lutsk region. In the middle of the workers’ shift, a bus with military draft officers arrived to the worksite. They started checking workers’ documents (not everyone had ID’s on them), picked several people at will and took them to the draft office. They kept them there for a day, not allowing anyone to leave. During that time they conducted medical examination and recognized everyone as "recommended for mobilization." They put them back on the bus and drove them to a battalion training site. Who will finish building the bridge? The draft office does not care about this.

Workers unloading a truck transporting windows were "pinched" by the draft officers in Ivano-Frankivsk. The drivers of that truck were captured early in morning on the parking lot. Two workers doing window installation were never allowed to finish the job for the customer. They were all taken and kept in the Lviv regional draft office for four days. It's good that at least all of them were fed!

Mobilization raids in Ukrainian villages have become more frequent. They already resemble the movie "Apocalypto", and not only by methods (illegal entry into private dwelling and the capture of male population), but also by the subsequent fate of the mobilized males; they are sent to the front as sacrificial lambs.

But after all, you might object, there are still a lot of men walking and driving cars on the streets of Ukrainian cities. True, but, the vast majority of them have a postponement, an exemption or a white ticket (exemption for health reasons). However, not all of those who have a white ticket are truly eligible for one. The truth is that white tickets can be obtained if you are healthy and/or otherwise medically eligible for military service, but at a steep price. Since, the army, as always, mobilizes the poor first, most have no means to pay someone off on the draft medical commission to issue a white ticket. 

In the last issue of “The Boston Krugozor”, (see the article about mobilization in Ukraine), we discussed the significance of having exemption (those who work for the strategic industries, companies vital to the economy, core government employees and officials are eligible for such exemption). However, it is extremely difficult for ordinary workers to get one. Nowadays, only a limited number of exemptions are allocated to eligible workplaces (for example, 50 percent of the full-time employees), which are primarily distributed between the management and those close to it. That's how the “Naftogaz” welder, who worked for many years on the construction of gas pipelines, (certainly a critical industry) was mobilized. All exemptions went to the company’s top brass and he was “left without  a chair when the music stopped”.

"Stroke does not exempt him from military duty"

58 year man, who had been in the army since December 2022, suffered stroke this spring. The Army put him in the hospital for a month, and then sent him... to the Desna military training camp. He was told that stroke does not exempt one from the military duties, you will go to work as an instructor. But, the man just did not make it to the training camp – he had a second stroke and died.

I mentioned earlier that there are almost no healthy people among those mobilized men who are 50 or older. But, you should have seen them with your own eyes! Those men come to the army with huge packages of medications. Each day first starts with them taking their medications. Many have leg ailments, every other one has heart disease (keep in mind that Ukraine is leading in the percentage of population with heart disease and it is the main cause of death). Up to ten percent of such new draftees will end up in the hospital in course of the first month. The men just can't take the training loads, even though these loads are quite gentle, since, the training instructors understand what kind of new recruits they were given. And, what will happen to such men at the front, once they are sent to storm enemy positions with equipment and weapons weighing a total of 15-20 kg?

It's not just that they may simply not reach these positions. (By the way, death from heart attack in course of preforming military duties, even in combat, might make the family of the deceased ineligible for compensation paid to families of war casualties due to the military bureaucrats not recognizing such death as casualty of war.) The main question is whether such “battalions of grandfathers“ are capable of performing combat duties at all? These are dead men walking, whose first combat mission will likely be their last.

Some might say - they might get lucky, just get wounded, and then maybe demobilized. They are wrong! The reality is that it can be incredibly difficult to get demobilized from the Ukrainian Armed Forces due to an injury. Several thousand crippled soldiers, no longer able to fight, are not allowed to go home. They are kept at the rear bases of their units, where they ambulate on crutches, waiting for the end of the war. Moreover, they are no longer considered to be on active duties, and therefore they do not receive war time solders’ pay of 20 thousand hryvnias (roughly $550 a month), but only about 800 hryvnas (or 20 bucks per month). This is not only enough  for medical treatment, but even for a day’s meal! And here's what's interesting. When Zelensky was informed about this problem, he offered these soldiers... to find a job. Cripples! The soldiers responded to his comments using language that we will not be repeating in this article.

"The army of 2022 has already been knocked out"

The scale of Ukrainian mobilization surprises and raises legitimate questions. While, the full picture is hidden from ordinary Ukrainians, the fact that the Armed Forces of Ukraine sustained huge losses is confirmed by soldiers fighting from the very beginning of the war; many of their comrades have already been killed or maimed.

Some of the main reasons for such huge casualty rate is poor planning of military operations, poor training and poor health of soldiers. Here is one example. The command sent a company to take up positions. After walking 5 km, loaded with equipment, weapons and ammunition, the soldiers stumbled upon the enemy that took those positions earlier. It was the fault of the command that did not organize operational intelligence and was not aware of the fact that that those positions were already in the enemy’s hands. Only a few soldiers from the company survived, because evacuation of the wounded was impossible.

Well, now imagine that the elderly and the sick are being sent to their positions! It seems that such a company will be defeated even faster. Then, how is Zelensky going to liberate Ukraine, which he continues to insist on doing?

In turn, this raises the logical question about the effectiveness of Ukraine's use of the Western aid. Do US taxpayers realize that their money is now being used to form military units from the elderly and the sick, who simply due to their physical condition and limitations, even with the best Western weapons, will not be able to achieve expected results? Is not it like investing into enterprise that is heading for bankruptcy? Finally, it raises a number moral questions both for Ukraine and the West as well.

*Men between the ages of 18 and 60 are not allowed to leave Ukraine under the ban announced by Zelensky