John Marone is our man in Kyiv (Image: Express)
As Ukrainian combat units battle to beat back Russian attacks on the front lines, recruiters struggle to fill depleted ranks in the rear. And judging by the videos posted almost daily on social media that show Ukrainian men kicking and screaming as they are snatched off the streets and bundled into military mobilisation vehicles, one wonders who has the more difficult fight.
Enter Territorial Defence Lieutenant Serhiy Andriychuk – a recruiter who does not trawl the streets of Kyiv in a drab green Hummer accompanied by a police cruiser but stands smiling near a brightly colored bus advertising the thrills of service as a drone operator in the Ukrainian armed forces. He said he and his team of young cadets from a Kyiv military technology college have been at it for the past seven months, as part of a bottom-up initiative to increase recruitment numbers.
“We set this up ourselves, using our own money from the unit. Then, when the command finally approves it, we will download the military data into the army’s database.” And right now, the data is not in favour of the recruiters, with only one in 10 new soldiers signing up voluntarily to fight.
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Territorial Defense Lieutenant Serhiy Andriychuk and the ‘recruitment bus’ (Image: John Marone)
He said: “The command determined the needs and we suggested a way.” And Lieutenant Andriychuk’s way is to get out to where young people congregate and show them what a military career can offer. “We park in different places, assess where we have been successful and where we have not,” he explained. The curious can ask questions and have a go at operating a drone simulator located inside the bus to get a feel for what a modern battlefield looks like.
Outside, Andriychuk and his people demonstrate a field robot platform, which can be used to mount a machine gun or retrieve wounded from the kill zone. “We are like a private company at a job fair,” he said. And like many private companies these days, Artificial Intelligence is in the forefront of development.
Andriychuk and his unit have even developed an AI bot called Foxy Lesya who charmingly fields public queries about military careers – a far cry from the image most Ukrainians have of military recruiters. Fear of being forcibly drafted has reached panic levels of late, with this month witnessing a wave of violent attacks on mobilisation units.
A soldier from a mobilisation unit in Lviv was stabbed to death by the brother of a man being forcibly conscripted as he exited a funeral parlour; two days later, a serial draft dodger wounded a policeman and soldier during a similar attack in nearby Vynnitsa Region; in Kharkiv, the same thing, with the attacker getting away; while in Central Ukraine, the escapee hit his pursuers with his car as he fled but got caught anyway.
Andriychuk said some conscripts run from mobilisation units, escape from training camps and go AWOL but many end up coming back, with part of them being assigned to less risky rear services. He said he has even had runaways come to him to enlist. “But we cannot take them because they are still assigned to the regular army and have to sort out the legal problems themselves.
“We do not have people lining up but they do come.”
Andriychuk himself is no stranger to danger, having fought in an infantry unit under the nom de guerre Turbo for three years before becoming a recruiter.
He said: “When war first broke out, I slept for two nights in front of a recruitment office to sign up.” And the Territorial Army, which does the same combat service as the regular army, does not just take anyone. He said: “If I see the person is not right I redirect them elsewhere. For me the main thing is motivation, not physicality or intellect.”
Still, according to Andriychuk, up to 10% of those who want to enlist are refused because they lack adaptive skills, the ability to handle stress, and logical thinking. “If someone cannot handle himself under stress, think logically, then he puts everyone else in danger.”
All recruits must pass a psychological exam before being taken on. With the International Legion now subsumed into the regular army, foreigner volunteers go through the same process.
“We do training now in six languages, including, English, French, Spanish and German,” he said. Andriychuk’s unit also visits and sponsors events that attract members of the recruitable public. We target everyone from 16 to 60 – with information as well as job offers,” he said.
With the war in its fifth year and no end in sight, the need for more recruits is not going away. “In the beginning, people were lining up to join the fight, but now we are just managing,” he said.
Nevertheless, Andriychuk has high hopes for Ukraine’s up-and-coming generation: “They have been weened off Russian culture, propaganda, cartoons as children for the past 12 years. They now know who they are.”
