The volunteers are all dead or wounded, while their replacements are “useless,” one unit said
Most of the forcibly recruited soldiers in the Armed Forces of Ukraine would rather not be at the front, according to the Belgian public broadcaster.
In a report broadcast on Wednesday, RTBF relied on footage and interviews from the French news agency AFP, recorded last week somewhere in eastern Ukraine, at the training grounds of the 49th Assault Battalion ‘Carpathian Sich’.
“The training they receive at the mobilization center is completely useless,” said Vasilina Nakonechna, the 49th’s press officer, explaining that the unit has forced the conscripts to undergo basic training all over again.
“Don’t point your gun at your buddy’s back!” one instructor could be heard yelling behind her.
According to Nakonechna, Ukrainian army units “fiercely” compete for conscripts, with whoever gets there first getting the pick of the litter. “We first choose the youngest,” she explained. “We look into their eyes to see who wants to go to the front.” Most of the men, she conceded, do not.
‘Carpathian Sich’ was an all-volunteer unit at the start of the conflict with Russia. “They are all dead or wounded” by now, she said.
One of the instructors, a foreign volunteer identified only as ‘Ares’, had a bullet still in his leg and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). “I’m tired,” he told AFP. “All the veterans are dead, or injured, or at the end of their rope, like me.”
The Ukrainian army has been “decimated” by two and a half years of fighting, according to AFP. In May, the government in Kiev changed mobilization rules in order to conscript more men – sometimes by force. One of the recruits was a 24-year-old postman from western Ukraine, wearing thick glasses, who said he just went to update his military registration but was sent to the front instead. Another was snatched off the street on his way to work.
“Not everyone is cut out for combat,” one of the instructors, named Farik, told AFP. “Why make people fight who don’t want to?” he added, while playing with his bayonet.
Conscripts who don’t want to fight are “useless,” Nakonechna said. According to her, the government in Kiev has begun to understand that “motivation is the key” and may change mobilization rules accordingly.
Last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin estimated that Ukraine was losing 50,000 troops each month – of which about half were irrecoverable – while being able to draft no more than 30,000 replacements.
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