Ukraine faces severe military manpower crisis amid war with Russia

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‘Colossal’ pressure: How Russia is targeting university students for military recruitment

The Ukrainian military has acknowledged the need to change as its mobilization campaign has been divisive and faced accusations of being unfair, corrupt and abusive.

While 35% of surveyed Ukrainian men not in the army stated they were willing to serve, factors that influenced their decision not to enroll included a shortage of materials and equipment, improper training, risk of death or injury, uncertainty about when and how demobilization would occur, ...

According to Ukraine's Prosecutor General's Office, as of September 2025 there have been over 250,000 desertion and AWOL cases opened since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022, contributing to Ukraine's conscription crisis. Women have been serving in Ukrainian combat units since ...

Personnel numbers had shrunk and training, command, and support functions needed improvement. After the start of the war in Donbas in April 2014 in eastern Ukraine, Ukraine embarked on a program to enlarge and modernise its armed forces.

That clarity must be translated into doctrines and concepts that reflect the transformed battlefield environment, provide necessary technologies and equipment, enable successful adaptations to be scaled across the force, and offer better and more survivable conditions of service for soldiers.1 Only within such a framework can Ukraine’s recruitment, retention, and mobilization policies transition from solely managing the manpower crisis to building a durable military capability. Over the past several years, public and policy debates on Ukraine’s manpower situation have focused on deficiencies in the country’s mobilization policy and its implementation as the primary factors underpinning manning shortfalls along the front lines.

"Shoigu had criticized the defense industry… for insufficient supplies to the military. And although it bears much of the responsibility for the failure of the invasion's initial phase, the FSB apparently managed to shift the blame" onto the Defense Ministry, he said. Among Shoigu's loudest critics was Yevgeny Prigozhin, a St. Petersburg restaurateur who built a formidable private mercenary force called Wagner Group, which became one of the more effective Russian units fighting in Ukraine.

Ukraine’s capacity to deny Russian breakthroughs is under increasing strain due to recruitment challenges and reduced Western support.