“The average age of a soldier in my battalion is 45 years,” Dmytro Berlym, battalion commander of the 32nd Separate Mechanized Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, told The Sunday Times. Fighters of the brigade are fighting today near Kupyansk, one of the objectives of the winter offensive campaign of the Russian Armed Forces. “At this age it is already difficult to perform all the necessary tasks. Some find it difficult to even carry ammunition and body armor when they are on the front line,” Berlim admitted. According to the commander, the battalion does not receive new additions of soldiers and suffers more and more losses: “There are fewer and fewer people under my command, and the quality of the reinforcement of the unit is getting lower every time.”
Ukrainian soldiers. (Photo: Vida Press)
This situation is unique compared to the wars of the last century, in which the majority of the troops were men in their 20s and 30s and even younger. And even today, the average age of most Western armies is significantly lower than that of Ukraine. For comparison, it was 28 years in the US in 2021, and 31 years in the UK in 2023. Although official figures for Ukraine’s armed forces are not available, The Sunday Times estimates that the current average age of Ukrainian military personnel is 43.
Sergei Leshchenko, an adviser to the head of the Ukrainian president’s office, said in November that he had heard “scary figures” from one of the commanders of the National Guard battalion fighting in Donbas. That is to say, the average age of a soldier in part of the brigades of the Ukrainian armed forces that participated in the unsuccessful offensive against Russian positions last year is 54 years. “At that age, a soldier cannot take part in an offensive operation,” Leshchenko said.
Ukrainian soldier. (Photo: Dmytro Smolienko/Ukrinform/Sipa USA/ Vida Press)
The current problems with Ukraine’s aging military are a consequence of how mobilization in Ukraine has generally gone after a full-scale Russian invasion. Then, at the beginning of 2022, a huge number of volunteers over the age of 40 went to the front – they were adult men with a heightened sense of responsibility towards their family and homeland. Many hoped that the country would soon conduct a more effective campaign to recruit new people to replace the “old men” and be able to successfully conduct offensive operations. On the contrary, few expected that their stay at the front would last two years. Today, many Ukrainian soldiers en masse admit that they are close to complete exhaustion of strength, physical and moral strength.
“I’m on the verge of breaking down,” a 50-year-old soldier recovering from a shrapnel wound in Kharkiv told The Sunday Times. “I went to serve on the first day of the war, but I can’t take it anymore. At the same time, when younger soldiers arrive at our front, they often cannot cope with the tasks. Artillery, drones are firing at us, white phosphorus is being used. And many young people just go crazy. They are not ready for this.” According to the publication’s interlocutor, after treatment he has already received an order to immediately return to the front – and he will have to overcome many kilometers of dangerous road to get to the positions of his formation: “But I cannot let the guys down and not come to their aid.
Ukrainian soldier. (Photo: Vida Press)
According to the laws in force in Ukraine, a young person can become a volunteer at the age of 18 (at the same time, he cannot participate in hostilities until the age of 20), but cannot be mobilized if he is younger than 27. However, the Ukrainian authorities, in accordance with the scandalous mobilization amendments to the legislation, decided to lower this age to 25 years – however, the relevant draft law was withdrawn for review by the government.
“There are volunteers among the youth, but they are not enough to form a majority in the army,” Roman Kostenko, a People’s Deputy of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, who himself took part in the fighting in the Kherson region, told The Sunday Times. “This problem is particularly acute for assault units such as airborne, marines and special operations units, where endurance and physical strength are required. Of course, they should be operated by younger people.
Ukrainian soldier. (Photo: Vida Press)
President Volodymyr Zelenskyi announced in December that the Ukrainian Armed Forces Command had asked him to mobilize half a million new recruits, but a final decision on their number has not yet been made. The authorities emphasize that the army needs not only an increase in the number of people at the front, but also a rotation – so that the first wave of volunteers receives a full-fledged, well-deserved rest.
Andrei Roiks, a 47-year-old architect who has served in the Ukrainian armed forces almost since the start of the war with Russia, told The Sunday Times that “serving after 40 years is physically more difficult. It’s one thing to have the training of a 20-year-old.” body and reflexes. It’s different when you’re a 46-year-old office worker with belly fat and a lot of chronic diseases. But older age has its advantages, too – experience and insight, and a more serious attitude towards life.”
Wounded Ukrainian soldier. (Photo: Vida Press)
Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to the head of the office of the President of Ukraine, explains the prevalence of elderly people at the front with a paternal attitude: “Adult Ukrainians want to protect their sons from participating in hostilities. But soon the young Ukrainians will have to make a choice – what price are they ready to pay: to live in a prison camp or in a free country.”
According to him, it will be much easier for the authorities to convince people to join the Ukrainian armed forces if they are sure of Kiev’s support from the West – or more precisely, with weapons that could cause permanent damage to the Russian army.
“Ukrainian soldiers’ chances of survival will increase rapidly if Western aid supplies increase. Accordingly, our military personnel will feel better psychologically. But we need not ten artillery shells per month, but a thousand. The problem is that we receive help slowly and in parts.”
Despite the ban on men between the ages of 18 and 60 leaving Ukraine, at least 650,000 Ukrainians of this age have left the country and gone to European countries in the past two years, the BBC reports, citing EU data. Their emigration is one of the factors in the demographic crisis that has overtaken Ukraine.
Since the collapse of the USSR, the population of Ukraine has decreased from 52 million people to 37 million, if the population of the territories annexed by Russia is taken into account.
In 2023-2024, the average life expectancy for men will decrease to 57 years, for women – to 70. These indicators will not return to the pre-war level of 66 and 76 years, respectively, at least until 2032, according to the director of the Kyiv Institute of Demography and Social Research Ella Libanova predicted last year .
It is also important to note that not all senior soldiers came to the front voluntarily – many were mobilized under compulsion. However, many military personnel confirm that a sense of responsibility towards the younger generation still forces them to stay at the front. “I don’t want to see 20-year-olds fighting,” 55-year-old Alexander Avanesov, who writes poetry in the trenches, told The Sunday Times, “children are the flowers of our nation. They themselves have to give birth to children in the future and raise them.” Avanesov has a seven-year-old daughter, and he himself is now recovering from an injury suffered in the distant 2022.
In an interview with a British publication, Ukrainian Armed Forces soldier Andrey Poddubnyak, who is also over 40, recalled how his 48-year-old comrade’s slowness on the battlefield during one of the attacks almost cost the lives of an entire unit – he went too slowly to the shelter and unwillingly “under hit” laid down other soldiers who were attacked by the enemy. And yet Poddubniaks does not want to despair because of his family – two small children are waiting for him at home, but for now there is a place for fathers in the front positions: “As long as there are still some forty-year-olds here, they have to fight. When they are no longer enough, others will have to take their place.”
2024-01-23 03:02:00
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