Kyiv, Ukraine – After almost two years of military service on the front lines of the Russian-Ukrainian war, Alina’s husband is “furious” about the new mobilization law.
Ukraine’s parliament approved the law on Thursday after months of debate and nearly 4,300 revisions.
Alina said her husband, who requested anonymity, and his brothers in arms are perplexed by the elimination of service limits. Previous versions of the law provided for demobilization after 36 months of service.
Without limits – and with the failure of last year’s counter-offensive and months-long delays in Western military aid – they realize that their service can only end with their disability or death.
“The government humiliated and offended them,” Alina, who lives in Kiev with two children, told Al Jazeera.
“They are not eternal. They want to see their children grow up, be at home,” she said.
The demobilization provision was overturned at the request of Ukraine’s top brass, who cited a severe shortage of military personnel on the front lines, especially in eastern Ukraine.
“The enemy outnumbers us seven to ten times,” Joint Forces Commander Yurii Sodol told lawmakers on Wednesday, urging them to pass the law.
But President Volodymyr Zelenskyy did not announce a formal mobilization, fearing backlash and protests, and preferring to focus on the law.
The law was passed with 283 votes in favor in the 450-member parliament, mainly because Servant of the People, Zelenskyy’s party that dominates the Verkhovna Rada, supported it.
The law increases frontline service salaries and death benefits for families, but Zelenskyy’s political rivals criticize the elimination of service caps.
“There is a lot that makes the law a whip without any stimulus,” wrote Volodymyr Aryev, a lawmaker from European Solidarity, a party centered on former president Petro Poroshenko. “The government wrote it to treat defenders as a resource, not heroes.”
Hours after the law was adopted, parliament urged the government to develop an additional bill on the demobilization and rotation of military personnel on the front lines.
The removal of service limits has predictably enraged experienced soldiers – especially those who began their service in 2014, when Moscow supported pro-Russian separatists in southeastern Ukraine, helping them create two separatist “People’s Republics”.
“Knowingly and voluntarily, I will become part of the category of most depraved citizens in my own country,” Artem Osipyan, a psychologist turned soldier, wrote on Facebook.
“Who will I be next? Should I always remain a soldier? Was my life so insignificant? What makes other people’s lives more meaningful and less worth sacrificing than mine?” he asked rhetorically.
Younger service members also find decommissioning completely confusing.
Shortly after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in 2022, Taras enlisted for three years of military service.
“It was supposed to be like a job – three years in and then out,” the bespectacled 23-year-old with a wispy beard on his tanned face told Al Jazeera.
Like all other active-duty military personnel, he must withhold his name and details of his service.
“It seems that I am serving until victory” over Russia, Taras said with a tight smile.
For military families, the uncertainty surrounding demobilization is depressing and demoralizing.
“You don’t need to be at war until you die, you need to know when your service ends,” the wife of a soldier stationed in the eastern city of Kramatorsk told Al Jazeera.
Her husband joined the army in 2015 but switched to volunteer work after injuries affected his gait.
He returned to duty in 2022 and remains on the front lines after suffering half a dozen bruises, developing vision and digestion problems and spending weeks in hospitals.
“They will stay there until the last man standing. Literally, last man,” said his wife.
Uncertainty about service boundaries also repels potential recruits.
Within hours of the large-scale invasion that began in February 2022, volunteers flocked to recruitment offices, especially in the eastern and central regions, and some even had to go to western Ukraine to enlist.
But general enthusiasm waned after news of serious losses and horrific conditions in trenches and military barracks amid corruption by officials and suppliers.
The mobilization law provides for the creation of an electronic registry instead of the obsolete paper-based system that has generated corruption.
Over the past two years, police and investigators have reported the arrest of dozens of mandatory military service personnel.
Some accumulated millions of dollars in cash and bought expensive real estate in Ukraine and Europe.
Every man of fighting age will have 60 days to register in person or through electronic registration, and those who do not do so will be considered draft dodgers.
Men will always have to carry their registration documents with them.
Some military personnel say that mobilization should be accompanied by better training for recruits.
“The enemy is strong, they have enough resources, enough people – if you can call them that,” a soldier stationed in the southern region of Kherson told Al Jazeera.
“We need better trained people who understand what they’re going to do, what they’re signing up for,” he said.
Forced conscription has already become a scourge across Ukraine.
In many rural areas, most men of fighting age have been recruited, while in urban centers potential soldiers avoid appearing in public places or using public transport due to patrols by recruiting officers and police officers.
Some men are urged to go to recruitment offices to simply clarify their personal details – but they never go undercover.
“Five guys I know went to a recruitment office and didn’t come back” because they were immediately sent to training bases, Tetiana Bozhko, who works in a hospital canteen north of Kiev, told Al Jazeera.
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
