Ukraine goes all out to woo young people into the army

Ukraine is targeting 18 to 24-year-olds with a military recruitment campaign to address a manpower crisis on the front lines.

The scheme dangles lucrative benefits for would-be recruits but this has already "angered" some long-serving troops, said Politico.

'Social benefits'

The campaign was launched with a promotional video featuring a montage of soldiers leaping into action as cash "rolls off a printer", says the Financial Times (FT). To a soundtrack of rock music, a message encourages viewers to: "Change your life in a year".

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Recruits are offered "general military training to Nato standards, specialised instruction and social benefits", including a package of 1mn hryvnia, or about $24,000, paid in instalments. Together with monthly support and additional pay for combat missions, the total income for a year's service could reach $48,000.

Other perks include subsidies for rents and mortgages, state-funded higher education, and the right to travel abroad after completion of service. All of these benefits have upset some Ukrainian soldiers who joined the army without any perks on the table. "The state devalues all those who voluntarily joined the army at the beginning of a full-scale war", one longtime serviceman told Politico.

'High desertion'

There are "high rates of desertion" amid "falling morale and heavy casualties", said the FT, so Kyiv wants to address the "manpower crisis on the front lines". Volodymyr Zelenskyy said last month that Ukraine's army currently stands at 980,000 troops, compared to Russia, which has about 1.5m active servicemen.

Franz-Stefan Gady, a senior fellow at the UK-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, said that a "corrosive effect" of the Trump administration's push for peace talks or a ceasefire is that Ukrainians wonder "if the war is going to be over in a couple of months" why they would "sign up now and potentially get killed".