Neither thousands of euros, nor free studies, nor trips abroad make young Ukrainians want to go to war.

BarcelonaUkraine's recruitment problems have been a constant in the last year and were even a source of ridicule during the tense meeting at the White House between the country's president, Voldymir Zelensky, Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance. The wear and tear of three years of war against an enemy with endless hordes of soldiers to sacrifice creates mobilization problems. This situation led the president to Zelensky to lower the draft age to 25 and to seek other ways to recruit soldiers. The latest attempt was at the end of February, a campaign promoted by the Kiev government to recruit young recruits between the ages of 18 and 25. It offered them a contract worth 1 million hryvnia (about 21,200 euros) after spending a year on the front, in addition to a salary of about 2,500 euros per month, interest-free mortgages, free university education, and the opportunity to travel abroad upon completion of their service. If they complete it, that is.

But all these financial incentives have failed to mobilize the youngest recruits. Two months after the campaign was launched, only 500 young people responded to the call (about 1,500 more began the process but have not yet signed the contract), according to investigations by Reuters and Meduza. "It's similar to the system that has been in place in Russia for a year and a half, which offers payments of up to $4,000 a month and is recruiting between 30,000 and 40,000 soldiers a month, because Russia has a much larger population, and a much larger impoverished population" in the post-Soviet space and founder of the Global Catalonia Institute, Abel Riu.

The United States has pressured Ukraine to lower the recruitment age to 18, but Kiev has tried to mobilize this generation "voluntarily" with these incentives. Zelensky's government is still reluctant to make the decision official, aware of the demographic problems that the loss of the younger generations could generate. Western intelligence sources suggest that the Ukrainian side could have suffered between 80,000 and 130,000 casualties, while Russia would be on the path to 200,000. "Most of the Ukrainian soldiers who have lost their lives were between 30 and 40 years old," Riu notes.

Oleksandr Moroz, a military instructor at one of the 10 brigades now hiring volunteers for one year, admitted to Reuters that most of the new recruits had signed up because of the financial incentives. "At this stage, they are still children, older children," he said. Another commander, Serhii Filimonov of the Da Vinci Wolves battalion, added that young people truly motivated to fight for Ukraine had already signed up voluntarily before this campaign, and that money could not be the motive: "You have to fight for your friends, for your family, for the future, not for a million." But some of these new recruits, who also spoke to Reuters, said they were unprepared for what lay ahead. "It's like TikTok and real life: there's a huge difference. In the video, everything looks so cool, so easy, but in reality, it's not," said 24-year-old Zakhariy Shatko.

However, The problems of general mobilization of soldiers in Ukraine "are no longer as worrying as they were a year ago," says Abel Riu.The numbers have improved thanks to the reduction of the official recruitment age to 25 and reforms to the enlistment system to end the "corruption" that existed, he explains. According to the head of the Global Catalonia Institute, Ukraine is estimated to have approximately 980,000 military personnel, although it is unknown how many are deployed on the front lines, compared to the 1.5 million Russian troops, of which at least 400,000 are reportedly deployed in Ukraine, according to what he made public.

"Ukraine has enough troops to hold a defensive position [as it currently stands, on a frozen front], but not to mount offensive operations," summarizes Pol Molas, president of the Society for Military Studies. Kiev has also resolved the ammunition problems they had at the beginning of last year because it has increased its own artillery production. Approximately 40% of the weapons and ammunition used by Ukraine are produced domestically, compared to much lower figures at the beginning of the war. Drone production is particularly notable: four million were produced by 2024. Added to this is the increase in military aid from the European Union.

A truce that no one believes

With only forty-eight hours left until the supposed three-day truce between Ukraine and Russia begins, the war front remains frozen. Russia has managed recover the entire Kursk province, which Ukraine invaded in August of last year, and is even beginning to penetrate the border province of Sumi. Kiev's troops, for their part, launched offensives on Belgorod, a border province on Russia, "and seized ten square kilometers," according to Rio. But on the Donbas front, Russian gains are minuscule, and the situation remains a war of attrition. Between October and November, Russia managed to advance more than a thousand square kilometers, but so far in 2025, its gains have been meager.

"Logic suggests that the side least interested in a ceasefire is Russia," says Riu, who is convinced that Vladimir Putin's goal when he proposed that three-day truce, it was simply to "project an image of Russia as a benevolent actor that wants peace." In fact, his proposal came just as Donald Trump was publicly reproaching him for "perhaps he didn't want to end the war." Putin then came out to propose a truce that would start right on Victory Day—which Moscow celebrates with all official pomp on the 80th anniversary of the fall of Nazism—and this has led to the belief that what he wanted was to ensure that he would not suffer a Ukrainian attack that would overshadow his commemorative events.

But experts doubt that the truce will actually be fulfilled. The two previous ones, during Orthodox Christmas in 2023 and during last Easter, were broken. It all seems like a diversionary maneuver to keep Trump minimally satisfied after having repeatedly rejected his initial proposal—accepted by Ukraine—: a 30-day ceasefire without conditions. Molas also believes that Putin is not interested in ending the conflict, among other reasons because it would mean "demobilizing thousands of veterans whom he has long inflamed with the promise of total victory" and who, upon returning home, might rebel or pose a problem like the one caused by the soldiers who returned to Germany disappointed.