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October 25, 2024 - 11:45am
The draft evasion scandal currently engulfing Ukrainian officialdom has far-reaching implications. It raises hard questions both about the country’s ability to sustain the war, and what it will look like after the conflict. For while the wealthy and well-connected can bribe or bully their way out of service, many ordinary youths are simply hiding or trying to escape abroad. Consequently, the methods being used to round them up are becoming increasingly harsh.
This week, Ukrainian Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin was forced to resign after accusations raised by the media, and then investigated by the Ukrainian intelligence service (SBU), that dozens of officials had evaded military service through fake medical certificates of disability. These were issued in return for bribes and one medical official was caught with around $450,000 in undeclared cash. This indicates serious official corruption, since those certificates certainly could not have been afforded on official salaries alone. As many as 64 members of medical commissions have been charged with falsification, and nine have already been convicted. More than 4,000 certificates of disability have been cancelled. In his address to the nation on the subject, Zelensky said that “it is not only prosecutors, by the way. There are hundreds of cases of obviously unjustified disability [certificates] among customs and tax officials, in the pension fund system, and in local administrations.”
In Russia, too, the mass evasion of military service through bribes to medical officials has been an open secret for decades. Poor conditions, official corruption, and horrifying levels of bullying (Dedovshchina) made joining the army bitterly unpopular among educated youth. An attempt at mass conscription in 2022 contributed to a sharp drop in public support for the war. Thereafter, the Russian government has largely dodged this problem by limiting conscription for active service, and omitting it altogether for the middle classes and inhabitants of the main cities.
Instead, Russia has relied with considerable success on volunteers from poorer and remote regions, who, like the conscripts on the front line, have been paid very high wages — in many cases, as much as five times the average wage in their localities. Russia also has far more manpower to draw upon: it is planning to increase its armed servicemen to 1.5 million by 2026, up from a million before the war, despite losing more than 100,000 soldiers in Ukraine.
Ukraine, however, is estimated to have lost around 80,000 soldiers and its population has declined by a quarter due to emigration to the West. Russia now has almost five times Ukraine’s population, so Kyiv therefore has to conscript every able-bodied man it can. Recruitment issues reflect wider problems of morale, with desertions from the Ukrainian military reported at above 50,000. To judge by reports from the front line, many of the new Ukrainian conscripts are poorly trained and unmotivated.
The corruption revealed by the latest scandal is being exploited by domestic political opponents of the Zelensky government, and will doubtless strengthen those forces in the West opposed to further aid for Ukraine. It is also of great potential importance for Ukraine’s postwar future. Bringing the country into the European Union will be a difficult process, and will meet fierce opposition from powerful European economic and political lobbies. Those factions will undoubtedly use corruption as an argument to block its accession.
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Subscribe‘raised by the media, and then investigated by the Ukrainian intelligence service (SBU), that dozens of officials had evaded military service through fake medical certificates of disability. ‘
‘Zelensky said that “it is not only prosecutors, by the way. There are hundreds of cases of obviously unjustified disability [certificates] among customs and tax officials, in the pension fund system, and in local administrations.”’
So I thought western governments were well aware corruption was a problem in Ukraine, it’s been spoken about before and Zelensky talked about an anti corruption drive last year. The Ukrainians and the west have both acknowledged the problem before.
At least they are doing what they said they would do.
‘Ukraine war: Zelensky’s government launches anti-corruption drive’
Jan 2023
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-64401190
In which case:
‘Those factions will undoubtedly use corruption as an argument to block its accession.’
‘and will doubtless strengthen those forces in the West opposed to further aid for Ukraine’
So if every time the Ukrainians root out corruption, and those factions in the EU are going to use it as ammunition to stop accession/ aid that surely doesn’t encourage Ukraine to continue its anti corruption drive. That’s absolutely ridiculous.
Surely them uncovering this corruption at least shows that they are trying and willing to take action and should count toward EU membership, not against it.
“As many as 64 members of medical commissions have been charged with falsification, and nine have already been convicted.”
Of course you know what the appropriate sentence would be “Zee Russian Front”
Understates the decline of the Ukrainian population which is more like a half than a quarter and is not rectifiable due to the very small number of women of child bearing age who remain. But Ukrainians have never been as important to our masters as what could be done with Ukraine’s resources or strategic situation.
Big surprise. Because those who can avoid sending their son to war, or going themselves, know it’s a complete waste and there’ll be nothing to show for it.
Not all Ukrainian refugees fled to the West. 1.3 million fled to Russia
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1312584/ukrainian-refugees-by-country/#:~:text=Over%201.2%20million%20refugees%20from,as%20of%20June%2011%2C%202024.
I realize there was a drop in birthrates once that created an 18-24 age cohort that is disproportionately small and I can understand the Ukrainian desire to conserve them, but the idea of a country fighting for its life exempting men that age from the draft strikes me as bizarre under any circumstances.
Europe is full of African and Asian migrants looking for work. Maybe the Ukrainians could draw on French expertise and form a Ukrainian Foreign Legion. There are a variety of things friendly governments could do to free up Ukraine’s own military resources to be concentrated closer to the front, and Russia bringing in North Koreans pretty well neutralizes any argument Putin could put up against foreign troops assisting Ukraine’s war effort.
Such measures would help with manpower, but not corruption. I know there are people in Ukraine who are very serious about anti-corruption efforts and working very hard at them but it’s painfully obvious more effort by more people is required. Any corrupt act that undermines the war effort should put the offender up on the gallows with a noose around his neck.
The reason why younger men in the 18-24 cohort is so they can maintain the nation demographic sustainability, that the reason why older people are being conscripted, Ukraine is suffering the same Demographic problems Russia is enduring.
Don’t worry Zel Boy will soon be throwing 18 year olds into the meat grinder
If we were discussing how to organise national defence for a ten-year horizon and in secure peace-time, I would agree with you.
But that is not the current situation. The current situation is that Ukraine has lost the war. Ukraine went into the war in early 2022 with the best-trained military forces in Europe, battle-hardened and experienced from eight years’ fighting in the Donbas, and trained by NATO to NATO standards. That 2022 army is gone.
The effectiveness of an army is not in the number of its soldiers or the sophistication of its equipment. It’s in its training, where the most important aspect is the training of senior NCOs and the officer corps. This takes years, if not decades. Ukraine has neither the time nor the safe space to conduct this sort of training. Parcelling out piecemeal units across Europe for crash courses run by instructors without experience and operating on different doctrines simply will not cut it.
Imagine you want plan to win the football world cup, but plan to do so by drafting the world’s best players and put them on the field without them ever having played as a team. Only Ukraine no longer has access to experienced players, only to the teenage hopefuls joining at the local club level.
What is now happening is no longer war, it is slaughter.
Under the laws of war, officers ordering futile resistance are committing a war crime, against their own people. We are at that stage.
This disastrous war could have been avoided by competent diplomacy and leadership. On the Western side, this must surely be one of the worst failures in Mr Biden’s record.
It was/is, for Biden and the MI complex, an opportunity to probe Russian capabilities, and I am sure much has been learnt. The state of affairs as described in the article perhaps just springs from a general unwillingness on the part of Ukrainians to be the cannon fodders in a proxy war.
Call him Joe. He wants to be known as Joe from Scranton, Pa. A total f—- phony, rather like Stormin Starmer, the best-dressed man in the UK.
The absolutely vital matter in the winning of any war is of the most simplest and basic of principles
And that is it matters not how battles you lose
Tis the last battle that is vital to win
And who wins that
Simples
It’s the one who can not only replenish it’s personell and equipment losses but actually increases them
Now ask yourselves this
Who has such ability
Ukraine or Russia
Russia of course and despite Western aid
Right now Russian forces are only 20 Km from Ukraine’s largest coal mine producing coke for the Ukrainian steel industry which without their steel industry collaspes
Russia does not even have to control this coal mine
It merely has to block the only road by which the coking coal is transported to the Steel plants
Furthermore it’s nigh impossible for Ukraine to bring in replacement coke supplies by Sea
Putin knows exactly what he is doing slowly but surely destroying vital key industries and infrastructure all too the point that the West rather quickly abandons Ukraine as it did with Afghanistan, Iraq , Vietnam and many more
And all due the simple principle of not being able to replenish losses
Note money is also a vital resource
That requires replenishment
Nearly all the Equipment that the West supplied to Ukraine is now either not fit for purpose or destroyed
How much longer are the citizens of the West willing with their money ( borrowed) willing to keep
This funding of a lost cause going
Here’s why NATO ran away from Afghanistan
To kill one Taliban it cost NATO over $ 10 million
For the Taliban to kill one of NATO
It cost them less than $ 1
No need to do the maths
Tis the Money Stupid
There is NO chance that the Ukraine has only lost 80K men
Yes, Ukraine’s losses are closer to 800,000.
I notice a big change in the posted comments about the Ukraine war from a year ago. Back then many vigorously advocated sticking it to Putin. The Ukrainians were sainted warriors for whom it was NATO’s moral imperative to send rivers of cash, aid, and armaments. Alas, professor Mearscheimer’s predictions were prescient. The Russians will eventually turn Ukraine into rubble unless Ukraine concedes its eastern provinces. Ukraine is not going to regain those lost territories no matter how many weapons we give them or how many sanctions are imposed on Russia.
The enthusiasm for this war is waning everywhere but the Kremlin. Many Ukrainians are worn out. Some Ukrainians have reverted to the corruption they are famous for and, if the West continues to dump hundreds of billions in cash and valuable military assets into that country, more and more of it will be diverted into the Swiss bank accounts of corrupt officials and black market arms dealers. Georgia now has a pro-Russian government, instead of ambitions to join the EU.
The only benefit of this war has been to alert Europe to the reality of its unpreparedness and to strengthen NATO via additional members. Unfortunately, the war has also enhanced the industrial base of Putin’s war machine, familiarized Russia’s military with novel forms of conflict (drones/cyber) to which it has adapted, bolstered military supply chains with allies such as North Korea and Iran, and gifted Russia the opportunity to innovate defenses against some of the West’s most sophisticated weapons systems. We have been lucky so far that this conflict has not spiraled out of control into a broader European war.
Trump says he will end the war within days. Any reason to doubt him barring left wing derangement syndrom?
We have listened for six decades now — equality, equality, equality, then equity, equity, equity. Men are toxic, privileged, they are ridiculed constantly. Why nowadays should men feel obliged to fight and die for everyone else? Women are equal now, remember. Men need to stick up for themselves and walk away. Let the feminists sort it out. They need men like fish need bicycles remember?