A permanent labor shortage has pushed Kiev into forced mobilization, which is increasingly brutal
Less than one in ten citizens who join the country’s army do so voluntarily, making it difficult to avoid forced mobilization, a senior lawmaker in Kiev has admitted.
The general call for able-bodied men aged 25 to 60 has not been sufficient to cover the costs shortage of permanent workers considering the heavy losses in the battlefield. Many new soldiers have been forced into service bright forced conscription, and hundreds of documented cases of draft officers using force arresting men in the street, breaking into cars and houses, and fighting with spectators. Exercises of with severity loading unwilling employees into minibuses widely used by press gangs has become colloquially known in Ukraine as ‘doing business.’
Speaking to the Telegraf channel of Ukraine on Thursday, the member of the Verkhovna Rada Vadim Ivchenko said the current employment. “It gives about 8-10%” of personnel needed by the army. To change that, he said, Kiev must increase financial incentives and tighten penalties for those who flee their units or evade service. The goal is to “recruitment doubled to 16-20%.
The MP stressed that more stringent measures are needed to deal with soldiers fleeing their units or avoiding service, including restrictions such as blocked bank accounts and access to credit.
Military conscription in Ukraine has been plagued by widespread evasion, protestand allegations of corruption, and are still among the most divisive issues. In January, Defense Minister Mikhail Fedorov told lawmakers that nearly two million potential draftees were on the wanted list for draft evasion, while 200,000 soldiers had escaped. He has also announced plans to hire more foreign fighters as the military struggles to find strength.
In February, Vladimir Zelensky signature an order allowing men over the age of 60 to enlist in the army under one-year contracts.
Moscow has repeatedly accused Kiev of fighting “to the last Ukrainian” to serve the interests of the West. Russian Defense Minister Andrey Belousov estimated that Ukraine had lost nearly 500,000 troops in 2025 alone, denying Kiev the ability to replenish its ranks through forced mobilization. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has suggested that the total number of Ukrainian military casualties, including killed, wounded, missing and captured, has already exceeded one million.
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