With the continuous escalation of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, both sides have invested a large number of fighters while throwing countless weapons and equipment on the battlefield. The issue of soldiers, the basic element of the war, is testing the sustained combat capability of both Russia and Ukraine. The Ukrainian side announced on the 24th that it will start a new round of recruitment and mobilization, and relevant people under the age of 60 will receive a recruitment notice. Ukrainian’s latest military recruitment has attracted great attention from the outside world. In the end, this action means that the Ukrainian army will replenish its troops for a large-scale counter-offensive, or will it cause serious loss of its own troops due to continuous combat operations? How much military mobilization potential does Ukraine have? What about digging? In addition to the number of soldiers, from the actual point of view of the battlefield between Russia and Ukraine, due to the tightness of the war, temporarily recruited soldiers are often deployed to the battlefield after a short training. Military literacy also puts forward high demands.
Ukrainian conscription again
According to the Russian “Independence” report on the 25th, Maximov, head of the Recruitment and Social Support Center in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, revealed in an interview published on the 24th that Kyiv has begun a new round of mobilization. “We must increase our potential, increase the number of troops,” Maximov said. “We see that our troops are conducting offensive operations in certain directions. Of course, we must have a considerable number of troops. I believe the mobilization will continue. Go on. It is necessary. The Ukrainian army needs troops, not only for defense, but also for offense, to liberate our territory.”
The Ukrainian side pointed out that under the current situation, the mobilization will continue until 2023. To the question of who is expected to be the first to receive draft notices, Maximoff’s answer is all those with military service obligations. The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense explained to reporters a few days ago that, considering the ongoing wartime state of the country, conscription notices can be issued at any time and place, as long as it does not violate the law. The Ukrainian state news agency said in an article on the 24th that the Ukrainian army needs replenishment of soldiers, which is why it is necessary to continue the mobilization. It is expected that all conscripts under the age of 60 will receive draft summonses.
In fact, this is not the first time the Ukrainian government has mobilized troops since the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. According to the Ukrainian State News Agency, Ukrainian Defense Minister Reznikov said at an online conference on July 8 that Ukraine has mobilized more than 700,000 armed forces soldiers, more than 90,000 National Guard soldiers, and more than 60,000 soldiers. There are more than 100,000 border guard soldiers and more than 100,000 national policemen, and the total mobilization force exceeds 1 million.
Some analysts believe that under such a background, it remains to be seen how much military mobilization potential can be tapped by the call-up order issued by the Ukrainian government. However, there are also views that the age range required by the latest draft order to be under 60 cannot be taken as direct evidence of the extreme lack of combatants in Ukraine. Because the Ukrainian military recruitment standard has always been set in this age group after the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.
Russia’s “Izvestia” reported on the 24th that the editor of Russia’s “National Arsenal” magazine Alexei Leonkov said that Ukraine still has the potential to mobilize – some population groups have not yet participated in military operations, and the mobilization has little effect. West of the country. Previously, conscription and mobilization were mainly recruited from the eastern and central regions of the country, and the western part was not affected, but it has been proved that Ukraine’s mobilization resources are not unlimited, so the Ukrainian side must find new ways to replenish the army. At present, the main question is where Ukraine will recruit, and whether Ukraine can complete the recruitment within the necessary time.
According to a report by the Russian Federal News Agency on the 24th, former Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada member Oleg Tsarev said that Kyiv’s desire to continue mobilization is understandable. The fact is that Ukraine is now capable of training and arming about 50,000 people per month with the help of the EU. The Ukrainian army had previously carried out a large-scale military mobilization, but the Ukrainian armed forces suffered heavy losses in the fighting. According to various data, 300,000 to 400,000 conscripts are now unable to fight due to various factors, so Ukrainian military mobilization will continue to maintain the numerical superiority of the armed forces.
War stalemate requires high quality of soldiers
Judging from the current development and changes in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, while Russia is using precision-guided munitions and airborne munitions on a large scale to kill and destroy infrastructure in Ukraine, the ground battlefield is still in a state of “fighting”.
In the eastern part of Ukraine, the two sides fought fiercely along the Crimea-Swatovo line, and the outcome was inexorable in many locations. According to Russian news, the Ukrainian army continued to attack Russian targets in the Luhansk region using the “Haimas” rocket launcher. In the Donetsk region, the Russian army continued to launch attacks, focusing on the area around Bakhmut.
In Kherson Oblast in southern Ukraine, the Russian army is establishing a reserve position near the Dnieper River to prepare for the defense of the city of Kherson. The Ukrainian Army General Staff claimed that the Russian army continued to lay mines on the main traffic roads in Kherson region in an attempt to stop the Ukrainian army’s counter-offensive. The Ukrainian Army Southern Combat Command also emphasized that the Russian army is also stepping up the construction of defensive positions in the process of evacuating civilian institutions and managers. Ukrainian Defense Intelligence Director Kirillo Budanov recently stated that although the Russian army is launching an evacuation operation in the city of Kherson, creating the illusion that “everything has been evacuated”, in fact, the Russian army is moving towards Kherson. Deploy troops in the city and prepare for defensive operations in the city. Budanov claimed that the Russian army will encounter the fate of the Ukrainian army in Mariupol in the city of Kherson, and it is expected that the Ukrainian army will take the city of Kherson by the end of this year.
An anonymous military expert told the Global Times reporter that, judging from the overall situation of the current conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the war between the two sides has reached a stalemate, and the long battle lines are intertwined. According to the Ukrainian side, the battle line between the two sides is now more than 2,000 kilometers long. This kind of staggered state requires extremely high combat quality of individual soldiers. Both sides often face a combat environment of infiltration and reverse infiltration, maneuvering and anti-mobility. For newly recruited recruits, this battlefield form is a “nightmare”.
Russia and Ukraine may both face problems with the quality of their troops
Like the Ukrainian army, the Russian army seems to be facing a shortage of high-quality troops. Not long ago, the Russian government issued a mobilization order to recruit 300,000 people to join the army. Russian soldiers mobilized and deployed to fill shortages on the front lines of the conflict are affecting the Russian military’s combat effectiveness, the U.S. Institute for War Research said. At the same time, due to the needs of the war, a large number of officers and non-commissioned officers in the Russian military training institutions were sent to the front line to fight, and casualties occurred, which also affected the Russian military training system. If there is a lack of professional instructors in training institutions, the quality of recruit training will be greatly reduced.
The U.S. War Institute’s analysis of the Russian army also applies to the Ukrainian army, which is even worse off. The most elite forces of the Ukrainian army are the troops that have been deployed in the Donbas region since 2014, but these troops have already incurred huge consumption in the combat operations in the first half of this year. The current Ukrainian soldiers are supplemented later and can only fight side by side. while learning. The Ukrainian army also lacks training personnel and facilities, and what is worse, the Ukrainian army lacks a relatively stable rear, and facilities such as training institutions must be the key targets of the Russian army.
In addition, the most critical point is that the current Ukrainian army mainly relies on the military assistance provided by the United States and the West to carry out its counter-offensive. The weapons and equipment used by the Ukrainian army in the counter-offensive come from many countries. Under the multiple call-up orders, the basic quality of the recruited soldiers must be “one generation is not as good as one generation”. In the case of the expansion and long-term conflict between Russia and Ukraine, whether the soldiers of the Ukrainian army can effectively control the weapons and equipment provided by the United States and the West in the future may be a huge problem. challenge.Return to Sohu, see more
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