Let's F*ck With Vlad, Part 5

Manpower Matters

As Ukraine approaches its fourth year of war against the Russian Federation next month, the situation remains grim but not without hope. The Ukrainian Armed Forces continue to give ground in the east of the country in the face of Russian attacks, while also fighting to maintain their positions within the Kursk pocket inside Russia. The newly re-elected US President, Donald Trump, has promised to pressure Russia to come to the negotiating table in order to end the conflict swiftly. Given the prevailing strategic conditions, a priority for Ukraine should be doing everything it can to induce Russia to come to the negotiating table and strengthen its position once negotiations commence. To that end, taking steps to redress its current personnel shortages serves both goals.

A shortage of troops has plagued Ukrainian forces almost since the beginning of the conflict. Ukraine’s forces have been consistently outnumbered by their Russian adversaries and as casualties have mounted on both sides, the shortage of personnel has become genuinely acute. Ukraine has moved to cannibalize both air defense personnel and Air Force ground personnel in an attempt to mitigate the shortfall, two measures that bring the Luftwaffen-Feld-Divisionen of a manpower strapped Third Reich forcibly to mind. The optics of this move were bad enough that Pres. Zelensky later publicly ordered the practice to be avoided.

Even with some personnel shuffling from support units and a lowering of the draft age, there are consistent reports of Ukrainian battalions reduced to platoon strength and kept on the line of contact regardless of losses, and of front line units that haven’t been rotated to the rear for rest and refit for years. This pattern indicates both a critical manpower shortage and that Ukrainian units are far less effective than they otherwise might be by virtue of a radically extended period in combat without an opportunity to recuperate. Units that have been whittled down to a shadow of their former strength, and nevertheless kept in combat, do not fight as well even in the event they receive replacements. Those units need time away from combat to integrate new personnel, refit equipment, and retrain the unit (veterans and new recruits) as a whole. Not only does this reduce Ukrainian effectiveness, it encourages the Russians to continue the war.

From the Russian point of view, these facts paint a picture of a deteriorating Ukrainian capacity to resist. Virtually zero rotation for units on the front line means a critical shortage of reserves to relieve them. Coupled with continued and public reticence by the Ukrainian Government to lower the draft age to 18, this fact pattern tells the Russians that attritional warfare is paying dividends. If Moscow can afford to keep the pressure on, eventually Ukraine will run out of men and the political will to keep resisting. At which point Putin can dictate, rather than negotiate for, terms of peace.

The wrinkle for Putin is that now he must attempt this in the face of a Trump administration promising severe sanctions if Moscow does not negotiate, possibly coupled with increased war materiel and general aid deliveries to Ukraine. If he doubts Pres. Trump’s resolve, or assesses Ukraine as being particularly vulnerable, he may attempt to stall for time and hope Ukrainian forces finally break under the constant pressure. It is incumbent on Ukraine to signal to Russia that its manpower situation will improve the longer the war drags on in order to, at best, incentivize negotiations, and at worst prepare itself for continued fighting.

There are three primary ways Ukraine can do this, some more effective than others and none of them easy. First, it can lower the draft age for males to 18. This would open up a pool of approximately more 1.2+ million potential recruits, minus those unfit for service or who have already volunteered. A second option is to draft Ukrainian women for rear area and support duties, much the way virtually every principal combatant nation did during the Second World War, minus the Soviets who had significant numbers of female combat personnel. A similar 18-55 draft law for women would open up a pool of approximately 9.6+ million people for potential recruitment. Again, minus those unfit for service or already serving. The third option is potentially the most difficult, but imposes useful diplomatic pressures on the European Union (EU).

Currently the EU has granted temporary protection for just over 4.2 million people who have fled the war in Ukraine and sought safety within EU borders. Ukraine should demand the repatriation of the draftable portion of this population in order to conscript them for military service. 21.5% of these are men ages 18-64, or just over 900,000 people. 40.5% of these are women of the same age range, equivalent to just over 1.7 million people. Of those the 56-64 age range is not draftable, not all of these who are draftable will be fit for service, and in some cases compassionate exceptions will need to be made. However, even accounting for all these exceptions, a significant portion of those 2.6+ million Ukrainians would be fit for conscription.

While the EU is almost certain to balk at this request, both Ukraine and the United States can leverage the EU’s own rhetoric on the Russo-Ukrainian War to force their hand. EU and EU member state officials have articulated a plethora of comments that they fear Russia will not stop at Ukraine, should it be successful in its invasion, but will continue to aggress into Europe. If that is so, then they too must make some hard decisions about preventing this supposed future aggression. Or else risk being branded by their allies as liars, cowards, or both.

Mass conscription on this scale is never easy for any society, much less one with Ukraine’s preexisting demographic issues. That said, wars rarely hang on the balance of the easy decisions. Ukraine is in an existential fight for its life and its people must decide how much they value their own sovereignty. Making the hard decisions as a society, now, has a better chance of forcing a more favorable negotiated settlement to this war. Failing to do so weakens any negotiating position Ukraine and the US may take against Russia, and increases the likelihood Russia will continue active operations as long as it can in the hopes of forcing Moscow’s preferred peace terms on Ukraine.