As Ukraine’s efforts to conscript enough men to fight Russia are stymied by public scepticism, defence officials and military units are embarking on a multi-pronged charm offensive to recruit a citizens’ army to resist the invasion.
This softer call-up is being conducted on job-search sites and outreach centres, as well as billboards and social media, and offers a wartime novelty: an element of choice.
Candidates can select their precise unit and roles suiting their skills, for instance, as well as how long they will serve.
On city streets, billboards of Ukrainian soldiers implore citizens to join up and defend their homeland, offering QR codes for convenience. Online, the 93rd Mechanised Brigade assures countrymen that “Everyone can do it!” in a glossy video campaign showing civilians, such as a chef and tractor driver, switching to analogous army roles as battlefield cook and tank driver.
Natalia Kalmykova, a deputy defence minister, said military planners recognised that in a democratic country, giving people some choice could be key in attracting them to the military.
“The people who come to defend our country now are not those who chose the military as their career: it’s civilians,” she said during an interview in Kyiv. “And civilians are used to being able to choose.”
Kyiv is desperate to replenish its drained and depleted forces, which are vastly outnumbered and outgunned by Russia along a 1,000-km front as the war enters a third grinding year.
The initial patriotic flood of volunteers who flocked to the army following the invasion of February 2022 has dried up. The government has acknowledged its conscription drive has run into difficulties, with thousands of people evading the draft and some seeking to flee abroad rather than risk the trenches.
A mobilisation law that comes into force next month obliges men to update their draft data with authorities, although it was stripped of tough punishments for draft evaders after a public outcry.
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