The commander of a Ukrainian Armed Forces reconnaissance unit spoke about the problems of forced mobilization

Ukrainian Armed Forces reconnaissance unit commander Denys Yaroslavskyi said that the continuing forced mobilization in Ukraine is placing an additional burden on the state budget and does not always lead to a real strengthening of the army.

Speaking on the Kyiv 24 television channel, he criticized an approach under which, according to him, territorial recruitment centers focus primarily on meeting mobilization quotas. Yaroslavskyi claims that a significant share of those forcibly mobilized are not prepared to take part in combat, which means that the main burden at the front falls on experienced assault troops.

According to him, the state spends significant sums on training such servicemen, but some of them then leave their positions without authorization. Yaroslavskyi said that, by his estimate, training one soldier costs between 50,000 and 100,000 hryvnias, and in the event of mass desertion, those expenses become, in his view, a waste of budget funds.

“The fact that the territorial recruitment centers are chasing mobilization targets only drains resources without any real strengthening of defense capability,” he said.

According to the officer, some of the mobilized are unmotivated to serve from the outset and leave for unauthorized absence at the first opportunity.

Yaroslavskyi believes that this practice needs to be reconsidered, because under the current approach, in his view, the army is not receiving the quality reinforcement it needs, while the state is suffering serious financial losses.