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Exclusive Mobilisation reform: who benefits, who harms?

The rational use of resources in the war with Russia is a prerequisite for defeating a numerically superior enemy. There are 6 attackers for every Ukrainian defender. In private conversations with military personnel who come on leave, we hear that there are not enough people on the ground. Against this backdrop, society continues to discuss the methods by which the state is trying to solve the problem of replenishing the army. found out from experts who benefits from the mobilisation reform and who is harmed by it.

At the very beginning of the Great War, martial law was imposed to prevent men aged 18 to 60 from leaving the country. Except for certain categories: the disabled, parents with many children, guardians of incapacitated relatives, and some others. Any ban is a new opportunity for corruption and abuse. Those who do not want to fight are trying to get into one of the privileged categories and get the right to leave, or try to illegally cross the western border and leave Ukraine. Those who remain in Ukraine should be prepared to meet with representatives of the Territorial Recruitment Centres (TRCs), former military enlistment offices.

Ukrainians are outraged by the stories of how representatives of the TCCs grab men of military age in public places without any legal grounds. They bring them to the Territorial Recruitment Centres (TRCs), and from there, often after a formal examination (instead of a full examination), they send them to the army. It is good when a detainee has service experience and a military speciality. However, there are numerous cases when people who are discharged from service fall into the hands of the TCC. And because of the illegal actions of the military, they end up in the war, where they are not only useless, but because of the lack of training in their profession, they can pose a threat to themselves and others.

Two stories of kidnapping

In January 2023, at the railway station in Chernivtsi, soldiers from the local TCC detained Serhii Hryshyn, a resident of the Dnipro region. He did not have any military registration documents with him. According to lawyer Serhii Myronenko, who was hired by Hryshyn’s mother, the man suffers from polycystic kidney disease. He was forcibly taken to the TCC, where they imitated the passage of a military medical commission (MMC), which declared him fit for service. He was then sent to a military unit, first in Rivne region, and then in Kolomyia, Ivano-Frankivsk region. Grishin managed to contact his parents and they hired a lawyer.

Serhii Myronenko tried to register a report of a crime of abduction, but the Kamianske Department of the National Police refused to register it, and only after a local court ruling did the police have to open proceedings. The defendant in the case is the Chernivtsi TCC. Hryshyn himself, who is being held on the territory of the military unit in Kolomyia, went on a hunger strike to protest against the arbitrariness of the TCC and the violation of his rights. At his place of residence, he was declared unfit for service in peacetime due to kidney disease. However, due to bureaucratic inconsistencies, he did not receive a military ticket.

Lawyer Serhiy Myronenko stressed that in such cases, the MEC should have sought information about the health status of the man, who is subject to mobilisation by age. Also, the Bukovinian doctors should have sent Grishin to a hospital for examination to confirm or refute the diagnosis. However, they sent an unhealthy man to the army. The timely appeal of the victim’s parents to a lawyer, the police and the court allowed the sick man not to go to the combat zone, where he would have created more problems than he did good.

It is not yet clear where Grishin will stay during the investigation. However, the only way to resolve the problem created by the Chernivtsi MCC and the doctors there is through the courts, the lawyer says.

The case described by the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union (UHHRU) on its website has many similarities with the story of the abducted Grishin. However, while the resident of Dnipropetrovs’k region has a chance to return home soon, the Kharkiv resident, whose name is not disclosed by UHHRU lawyers, served in a combat unit as a machine gunner for a year and a half before the court ordered the military unit to release him as illegally mobilised. the 19-year-old was a full-time student at a Kharkiv university. In the spring of 2022, he was taking his mother out of the shelling. But in Uzhhorod, at the railway station, he was captured by the local military commissariat, where they imitated a military medical examination and sent him to the front. He turned to human rights activists for help.

It took a year and a half for the court to consider the claim and declare the mobilisation illegal. The guy had to be released. During this time, he was expelled from the university. The compensation of 50 thousand hryvnias for the illegal actions of the TCC employees will be paid from the pockets of taxpayers.

The story told by the UHHRU is not typical for the activities of human rights defenders. Such cases are mostly handled by hired lawyers. The reputable Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group (KHPG) has no opportunity to help those mobilised. Although it has lawyer partners throughout Ukraine.

“I physically lack time… Several cases I have encountered show that the presumption “the army is always right” applies, in particular in cases where it is completely wrong. Hunting for men, serving notices of enrolment in the TCC… this is illegal, but it was a common practice,”

– yevhen Zakharov , a veteran of the human rights movement and director of KHPG, told our publication.

He expressed hope that the situation will improve with the adoption of the draft law, which was registered in the Verkhovna Rada at the request of the Government.

This is the second attempt to bring order to the system of replenishment of the Ukrainian army. The first draft law, submitted in the spring of 2023, was heavily criticised and withdrawn.

Reform as a defence against arbitrariness

Experts predict that the document will become law in late February or early March. Before that, the discussion will continue, and it has already begun.

Among the positives are the mandatory training of future soldiers, as well as the transfer of the right to punish so-called “evaders” from the CC to the courts.

As for those unwilling to defend their homeland, it is proposed to introduce the sanctions that Ukrainians ridicule the enemy for: blocking accounts and seizure of property, deprivation of the right to drive, etc… However, such decisions can only be made by a court.

Even those who have been removed from the military register will have to carry their military registration documents with them. The introduction of an electronic registry is aimed at reducing bureaucracy.

“If such a registry appears and starts working, there will be no need for the so-called ‘ogres’ of the TCC. The reform envisages real changes in the structure of these commissions, which, despite the change of signage, still essentially remain Soviet-style military commissariats,”

– military expert Dmytro Snegirev told .

Among the shortcomings of the draft law, he named the unresolved issue of rotation of military personnel at ground zero.

“The reform itself is in the interests of both the state and those who have to defend it. But if we do not give a clear answer to the question of rotation, it can significantly undermine the credibility of the reform itself and the state as a whole,”

– said the expert.

Ivan Makar, a former MP and now a lawyer, is cautious about the proposed reform.

“I think the arbitrariness will stop, and corruption flows will go back to the usual course for our legal system: investigator – prosecutor – judge! I express my “condolences” to the heads of the TCC and their bosses from the General Staff!”

– makar told our publication.

He is convinced that the current system of mobilisation is in the interest of the military leadership. The only argument in favour of this thesis that Mr Makar cited was Valeriy Zaluzhny’s statement that the old staff at the TCC would cope with mobilisation.

But Dmytro Snegiryov believes that the attempt to put the blame for all the problems and shortcomings of the Ukrainian army on the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is a continuation of the information attack launched from Russia against Valeriy Zaluzhnyi.

Author: Anvar Derkach