Ukrainian soldiers will not be able to be on the front line for more than two months in a row
Kyiv's change of logic comes pressed by a growing unease among military families
BarcelonaFollowing growing unrest among soldiers' families, the Ukrainian army has implemented measures to limit the time military personnel can spend in combat positions without rest. The head of the army, Oleksandr Sirski, announced this Thursday that rotations for soldiers deployed on the front will be mandatory once they have completed a maximum of two months of service in these frontline positions.
This is one of the requests that many soldiers have been making since the beginning of the war, and Sirski justified that it is now possible to implement it due to the massive presence of drones on the front, which "have changed the very logic of conducting combat operations." "The concepts of frontline, rear, and depth of combat formations have been significantly transformed," he argued.
In a Facebook post, he indicated that commanders must ensure conditions for soldiers to be in their positions for a maximum of eight weeks with the consequent relief, which must be carried out within a maximum period of one month. He added that rotations must be planned "taking into account the circumstances, the nature of military actions, and the existing forces and means" in the different positions. "Timely rotation is not only a matter of organizing service, but also a matter of preserving the lives of our soldiers and the stability of defense," he said.
The units carrying out combat tasks are the least popular among Ukrainians and are mainly supplied by conscripts forcibly called up for service. Sirski's order comes after relatives of soldiers from the 14th Separate Mechanized Brigade published images of emaciated soldiers, alleging that they had been abandoned on the front line for months without a constant supply of food or water. They even reported that in some cases, soldiers had resorted to rainwater.
In statements to the Ukrainian media this week, the ombudsman for the military, Olha Rexetilova, said that serious logistical errors like those faced by the 14th Brigade were infrequent, but that long-term deployments in advanced positions remain "a big problem."
They don't care if they live or die
In an interview with Ukraïnska Pravda, Rexetilova explained that a report had shown that after 40 days in a position, a person becomes indifferent to whether they live or die. "They become completely apathetic. All commanders should take this information into account," she stressed, as such a long stay for soldiers in these positions "cannot be considered effective."
In addition, the defender of the military recalled that the maximum stay of a soldier in a position should be 15 days. "But no one follows this rule, and this ultimately leads to no restrictions. Furthermore, some commanders do not feel responsible for their combatants sitting in shelters and basements in a semi-encirclement for a year or more," she added. And she emphasized that the country had to establish "realistic deadlines" for completing combat missions for infantry and assault troops directly on the front line.
However, it is not clear whether the Ukrainian forces have enough personnel to implement this new decree, given that they are increasingly finding it difficult to recruit new soldiers, after more than four years of war.
Taras Chmut, head of the Come Back Alive organization, stated that this personnel shortage is largely the result of the "chaotic" management of the various units of the Ukrainian army. "The number of people in the army is relatively constant," he said, adding that similar decrees had been issued in the past, but that "the issue is the effectiveness of using these people."
