Ukraine shakes down nightlife spots for recruits as troop numbers fall
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. KYIV, Ukraine—Ukraine is widening its dragnet in the search for troops to shore up its creaking front lines, conducting spot checks of men at upscale venues including a concert and a wine store in Kyiv and a street of hip eateries in Odesa. The stepped-up efforts show the difficulties Ukraine faces in raising new soldiers to backfill front-line losses as the war approaches the three-year mark.
Tensions are rising in society over how some prominent figures, including state prosecutors, evade the draft through medical exemptions, leading President Volodymyr Zelensky’s attorney general to resign last week. On the front line in the east, Russians are using superior firepower and manpower to squeeze forward against Ukrainian forces that were already overextended before they invaded Russia’s Kursk region in August. Zelensky has been trying to secure more weapons and security guarantees from the U.S.
to turn the tide against Moscow. But at home his biggest immediate problem is getting enough troops to hold the line. Most men who wanted to join the armed forces have already done so and enlisting more is only getting harder.
Many are in hiding or have fled the country illegally to escape the draft. “There is no easy solution," said Mathieu Boulègue, a nonresident senior fellow with the Transatlantic Defense and Security Program at the Center for European Policy Analysis, a think tank based in Washington. “That is unfortunately a critical issue that you cannot solve by sending stuff over, short of sending Western troops," which isn’t likely.
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