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Outcry in Ukraine after Kyiv scraps
demobilisation plan for long-serving soldiers
Military leaders had put pressure on politicians to
ditch a draft amendment that allowed troops who had served for more than 36
months in war a chance to be discharged
Agence
France-Presse
Thu 11 Apr
2024 02.34 CEST
Ukrainian
lawmakers have sparked anger by scrapping a clause in a draft law that would
have given soldiers who have spent long periods fighting on the frontlines a
chance to return home.
With
Ukraine’s army outnumbered by Russia on the battlefield, “the offensive
continues along the entire frontline. And currently it is impossible to weaken
the defence forces”, Dmytro Lazutkin, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s defence
ministry, said Wednesday on state TV.
“We cannot
make hasty decisions now,” he added, explaining the military’s opposition to
the provision.
Military
leaders have put pressure on politicians to ditch a draft amendment that would
have given soldiers serving for more than 36 months the possibility to be
discharged.
The draft
law passed its first reading in parliament in February. That draft included the
demobilisation plans, after debating its recruitment policy for more than a
year.
But that
clause was removed ahead of its second reading on Wednesday, after an appeal
from the chief of the army and defence minister, said Iryna Friz, a member of
the parliamentary defence committee, in a Facebook post.
The
reversal immediately spread anger across Ukraine, a country exhausted by years
of war, and has risked sapping morale in the stretched armed forces.
“It’s a
disaster,” Oleksandr, a 46-year-old artilleryman in the Donetsk region told
AFP.
For many
men, having a demobilisation date was a source of motivation to carry on
fighting, he said.
“When a
person knows when he is going to be demobilised he will have a different
attitude,” he said.“If a person is like a slave, then it will not lead to
anything good.”
Sergiy
Gnezdilov, an activist and soldier who fought for the city of Mariupol, called
the move a “cruel twist”.
Ukraine’s
armed forces have been fighting since 2014, when Russian-backed separatists
seized border regions.
Russia then
launched a full-scale invasion in February 2022, with Kyiv’s troops now engaged
across a sprawling 1,000km (600-mile) frontline in the east and south.
Several
financial benefits for soldiers were also scrapped from the draft bill, Friz
said, and the government will instead review “mechanisms of rotation of
military personnel”.
Soldier and
political figure Yuriy Gudymenko criticised the new version of the proposed law
for having “neither punishments for evaders, nor serious benefits for newly
mobilised people”.
He
predicted it would result in “an increase in the number of unauthorised
absences from units, bought decisions from medical commissions and non-returns
from vacations”.
The defence
ministry acknowledged on Wednesday that finding a way to relieve soldiers was
“necessary”.
“It is
clear that people who have been fighting since the beginning and holding the
defence since 2022 are getting tired and exhausted,” spokesperson Lazutkin
said.
Yevgen, a
paratrooper fighting in eastern Ukraine, said he had not seen his wife, who
lives abroad, in two years.
Last year,
he was on leave for only 10 days, which he spent on treatment. “Those soldiers
who have been fighting for a long time, for more than a year … They are already
very tired,” he said. “Families are falling apart because the husband and wife
are not together for six months or a year.”
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