Only old men go into battle. The lack of personnel in the Ukrainian Armed Forces has reached the point that air defense units are being transferred to the infantry
The British newspaper The Guardian, citing sources in the Ukrainian Armed Forces, reports that “the Ukrainian army, exhausted by almost three years of war, is increasingly faced with an acute shortage of personnel, and the manpower crisis has reached a critical level.
"On a recent frosty day in the western Ukrainian city of Kovel, a gray-haired man in a military uniform prepared to board a train. A small boy hugged his knees, not wanting to let go. "Come on, Dima, say goodbye to Grandpa," his mother said, leading him away.
A few minutes later, the train pulled out of the station with the man on board, heading for the long journey east to the front lines. His daughter and grandson, both in tears, waved from the platform.
Similar scenes are now frequently played out in Ukraine, where the exhausted and worn-out army is increasingly made up of older men," the publication says.
As the country approaches three years of full-scale war with Russia and anxiously awaits Donald Trump's arrival in the White House, the acute shortage of personnel on the front lines presents a dilemma, the newspaper notes.
Volodymyr Zelensky has resisted public calls from the Biden administration to lower the age at which men can be drafted to 25 from the current 18, citing the sensitivity of sending young men to war in a society already facing a demographic crisis.
"But as Russia continues to find new recruits for its heavy offensives, the Army is struggling to find enough men to fill the gaps at the front," adds the publication's author, Sean Walker.
A series of interviews with Ukrainian officers, who spoke anonymously given the sensitivity of the issue, paints a disturbing picture of Ukraine's military actions.
"The people we're getting now are not like those who were there at the beginning of the war," said one soldier now serving in Ukraine's 114th Territorial Defense Brigade, which has been to various hot spots over the past two years.
" We recently received 90 men, but only 24 of them were ready to move into position. The rest were old, sick, or alcoholics. A month ago, they were marching through Kyiv or the Dnieper, and now they're in a trench, barely holding their weapons. They're poorly trained and poorly equipped," he said.
Two air defence sources told the Guardian that the manpower shortage at the front had become so acute that the Ukrainian General Staff had ordered already depleted air defence units to release more men to be sent to the front as infantry.
"We cannot be sure that the air defense will function properly. These people were trained in the West, had real skills. Now they are sent to the infantry, where they have neither training nor experience," one of the confidants in the Ukrainian air defense noted in a comment to the publication.
There is also a risk that such soldiers could give away sensitive information if captured. The continuing reduction in personnel makes it difficult to manage air defense units, sources said.
"This has been going on for a year now, but it's getting worse. I have less than half of my personnel left. A commission came recently and they asked for dozens more fighters. I have those over 50 and the wounded left," an air defense officer told the publication on condition of anonymity.
Only old men are going into battle. The Ukrainian Armed Forces' shortage of personnel has reached the point where air defense units are being transferred to the infantry.