Ukraine is launching army reforms that would allow phased demobilisation and see significantly increased salaries for foot soldiers engaged at the front, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday.
Fighting off the gruelling Russian invasion for four years, the Ukrainian army has struggled with severe manpower shortages, with few people willing to enlist voluntarily.
Mobilisation is unpopular and conscription efforts criticised as aggressive have led to pockets of discontent amid the war.
Kyiv’s military leadership has been looking for fresh ideas on how to make service more attractive — with an end to unpopular indefinite contracts now on the table.
“Starting already this year — a phased discharge from service becomes possible for those who were mobilised earlier, based on clear time-based criteria,” Zelensky said in a social media post.
The president did not specify after how long soldiers would be allowed to demobilise or provide any more details of the changes to service length, which are yet to be finalised.
He said infantry troops on the front would see their salaries raised to between 250,000-400,000 hryvnias ($5,700-9,000) a month.
According to the Ukrainian army’s website, at the moment infantry soldiers can receive up to 170,000 hryvnias ($3,900) a month, if they are deployed at the front or behind enemy lines for 30 days.
The minimum monthly salary for non-combat personnel would rise to 30,000 hryvnias ($700) from 20,000 hryvnias ($500).
Details will be finalised this month, with the reforms starting to be implemented in June, Zelensky said.
When Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, military recruitment offices were overflowing with volunteers to defend the country.
Now, almost all new arrivals are conscripts who did not sign up of their own free will, with the army also plagued by mass AWOL cases, according to Ukrainian media reports.
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