Ukrainian conscripts ‘don’t want to fight’ – Belgian state TV
Most of the soldiers in the Ukrainian army who were conscripted do not want to be at the front, Belgian state TV (RTBF) has reported.
In a report broadcast on Wednesday, RTBF reviewed footage and interviews from French news agency AFP recorded last week at the training grounds of the Carpathian Sich 49th Assault Battalion in eastern Ukraine.
“The training they receive at the mobilization center is completely useless,” battalion press officer Vasilina Nakonechna said, 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 was heard yelling behind her.
According to Nakonechna, Ukrainian army units “fiercely” compete for conscripts. “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 claimed, 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’, still had a bullet in his leg and post-traumatic stress disorder. “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 the mobilization rules in order to conscript more men – sometimes by force. One of the recruits was a 24-year-old postman from western Ukraine who said he 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, Farik, told AFP. “Why make people fight who don’t want to?”
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 the mobilization rules accordingly.
Last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin estimated that Ukraine was losing 50,000 troops each month – of which around half were irrecoverable – while being able to draft no more than 30,000 replacements.
