Ukraine’s Tragicomic Recruitment Strategy Mocked as ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ Scheme
A local resident walks past a recruiting poster for the Ukrainian Third Assault Brigade, made up of fighters from the notorious ultra-right Azov* Regiment, as people take shelter in an underground metro station during an air raid alert in Kyiv on April 23, 2024.
Ukraine’s authorities approved a new mobilization law in April, with the legislation intended to mobilize hundreds of thousands more troops to fuel NATO’s proxy war against Russia. Along with draconian penalties for draft dodgers, the mobilization drive has been accompanied by some eyebrow-raising measures to ‘incentivize’ would-be recruits.Britain’s leading business newspaper has unintentionally made a laughing stock of the Kiev regime’s efforts to get more Ukrainian bodies on the battlefield, dubbing a new strategy involving giving recruits a chance to pick where which forces they serve in a “choose your own adventure” scheme.“Outmanned and outgunned by Russian forces on the battlefield, Ukraine’s army urgently needs fresh fighters, as more Western military aid is expected to arrive in the coming weeks. But the queues of patriotic volunteers who lined up outside recruitment centers” at the start of the conflict “have long since disappeared,” the Financial Times wrote in a piece published Tuesday.
Acknowledging that Ukraine’s male population has cottoned on to problems plaguing service in the military, from corruption and lack of ammunition to incompetent commanders, lack of training, and inability by frontline troops to go on leave, the newspaper pointed to a new Defense Ministry recruitment strategy featuring advertising to make recruitment “sound more exciting, by inviting men to choose their own unit and even their precise role.”
‘Everyone will Fight’ – choose your own unit now’, a billboard advertisement for the Da Vinci Wolves Battalion cited by FT beckons (the newspaper fails to mention that the battalion was originally created as the paramilitary wing of Ukraine’s notorious neo-Nazi Right Sector* nationalist group).‘Are you with us?’ another poster reads, this one for the 3rd Assault Brigade, featuring a stylized Wolsfsangel runic symbol used during World War II by the Nazis. The 3rd Assault Brigade was formed in late 2022 from the remnants of the Azov* Brigade and Azov* Special Operations Forces – two more units with ultra-right leanings.
Russia’s Special Operation in UkraineRussia’s Special Military Operation in Ukraine: How It is Progressing17:09 GMT“The idea is that by giving them a sense of control, Ukrainians can be persuaded to sign up for more prestigious and possibly better equipped units. Or that they will take specialized roles in the rear, in support of the frontline deployments,” FT explained, admitting that “the implicit message of some brigades is that if Ukrainians do not volunteer now they run the risk of being conscripted later into standard infantry formations under weaker commanders.”The “‘pick and choose’ approach,” running alongside Kiev’s regular mobilization, has also been accompanied by a Defense Ministry push to recruit specialists, including IT experts, drone operators, medics, drivers and press officers, with the limited number of vacancies receiving a flood of applications, presumably as men seek deployments away from the front, or where they can avoid having to kill people.Ukraine’s mobilization drive comes amid an increasingly desperate situation at the front, with Russia’s breakthrough of heavily fortified areas in the Donbass earlier this year, and slow, methodical advance into Kharkov region, sparking fears in Kiev, Washington and European NATO capitals that the front may be close to collapse, prompting increasingly alarming threats of escalation by the Western bloc.Former Bundeswehr Chief of Staff and ex-NATO Military Committee chairman Harald Kujat warned last week in an interview with German media that alliance countries supporting the conflict’s continuation are “fatally” mistaken if they think Kiev could benefit in any way from this approach. Kujat added that the recently passed mobilization law took nearly a year to approve, becoming a “compromise” between the need to reinforce an exhausted and depleted army, and avoid an uprising by an increasingly resistant population.
MilitaryGerman General Warns of ‘Fatal Mistake’ NATO Will Make If Ukraine Proxy War Continues29 April, 15:38 GMTFT’s readers couldn’t help but notice the signs of desperation emanating from the business newspaper’s piece.“This reminds me of the stories about the Third Reich in early 1945,” one person wrote. “So are those ‘reports about shortages of ammunition, claims of corruption, incompetent commanders and inadequate training’ true?” another asked.“The reason Ukraine has a manpower problem is the fighting age population has lost confidence in Ukraine’s ability to win this war. They see through the propaganda and the recruiting posters like this as being fake. They do not desire to be cannon fodder,” one reader suggested.“Thanks for putting the billboard with Mr. Andriy Biletsky on the front page. Biletsky is a well known Ukrainian far-right nationalist, the author of the ‘World of the White Leader’ and the founder of the far right ‘Right Sector’. In 2011, the BBC described him as a ‘white supremacist’,” another person wrote.© Sputnik / ScreenshotScreenshot of the Financial Times’ front page Tuesday story, which features a billboard advertisement by Ukraine’s notorious neo-Nazi Azov* Battalion.
Screenshot of the Financial Times’ front page Tuesday story, which features a billboard advertisement by Ukraine’s notorious neo-Nazi Azov* Battalion.“The best gig is probably fetching coffee for the US ‘advisors’ manning the ATACMs, and pressing the ‘fire’ button when directed,” someone suggested.“Isn’t this some kind of a self-inflicted genocide if you want to send all the men of a certain age to fight, even if they don’t want to fight? What will be left of Ukraine to save after a couple of years?” another person lamented.“As a native Ukrainian, I have to share my point of view as well…It turned out that in 10 years, the right-wing radical and nationalist sectors of society appropriated patriotism, the right to the truth, the right to decide how to live in a huge country. I do not support the current political course of the government, nor Zelensky. They are the worst thing that has happened to our country during all the years of independence. They are a cancerous tumor that is ready to kill the whole organism,” a user named Kostiantyn wrote.* Recognized as terrorist organizations and banned in Russia.
