Two years in the service, a salary of 500 UAH and no vacations: conscript service during martial law

After the introduction of martial law, more than 40,000 conscripts found themselves in limbo. Even after serving their term, they cannot leave the service - they will only get this right after the war is over and demobilization is announced. So now, for a few hundred hryvnias (their salary), soldiers are supporting the life of their military units.

hromadske talked to those who have “over-served” for several months and found out how much more time they will spend in uncertainty.

“Free labor”

In the spring of 2020, Maksym received a draft notice: he dropped out of university, returned to work, and consequently lost his deferment from military service. Due to the coronavirus epidemic, the draft was postponed, and Maksym joined the army in the fall of 2020.

Since then, he has been on active duty and has now served for 2 years and 7 months. During the first month, Maksym completed the army preparation course, and the rest of the time he and other conscripts “worked as laborers and were on daily patrols”.

“We went to the training ground only a few times during this time, but we fired only 12-20 rounds. This is not training at all,” said Maksym, who asked not to be identified to avoid sanctions from the command.

The conscript says that in the first month of the Russian invasion, they were temporarily involved in the defense of combat positions while mobilization was just beginning. Now they mostly clean the territory of the military unit, unload vehicles, and guard facilities.

“We are again treated like free labor, and the statute is used only in their own interests. If you simply compare the rights of a prisoner and the rights of a conscript, you will find a minimum of differences, with the prisoner’s condition sometimes being even better...” the21-year-old soldier is outraged.

However, he notes that his commanders do not mock conscripts in the same way as they didin Zhytomyr or Ivano-Frankivsk when officers beat their subordinates. Most complaints are about salaries and problems with vacations.

“As far as I can tell judging by my unit, there are more than enough people mobilized to demobilize conscripts or at least mobilize us to equalize our rights and salaries. We have no vacations, some of us have not seen our families for one or two years, our salary is 350-720 hryvnias per month: this is barely enough for soap and water, and the main argument against this is that we are ‘on full state support’. But this is far from the case,” explains Maksym.

Tetiana, the mother of another conscript, says that her son receives a salary of 560 hryvnias and that she sends him parcels twice a month – “everything from socks and underpants to cigarettes and goodies”.And she spends two to four thousand hryvnias on it.

Vacation, salary, and mobilization

Last year, the president signed a law that makes it impossible to discharge from service before martial law ends and demobilization is announced. Therefore, Maksym, like the rest of the conscripts drafted after 2020, is “over-serving” his 12-18 months. The only option is to switch to contract service. The shortest contract can be signed for three years.

“Many people are not satisfied with this. For example, I did not choose military service. I thought I would serve for a year and a half and have peace of mind. Together with the contract duration, I will have served for five and a half years. In addition, I am not a local: I am serving 1,000 kilometers away from home,” says Maksym.

At the beginning of the invasion, he and other soldiers had two options: to be mobilized to the units in which they served after the end of their conscript service, or to be deferred so that they could be called up and rotated to the front.

“But this did not happen. After the 24th, we were almost forgotten,” says Maksym. “Although we are on a par with mobilized and contract soldiers in terms of supplying units in the combat zone. But contract soldiers and mobilized soldiers receive salaries of more than 20 thousand hryvnias for regular duty and 30 thousand hryvnias for combat, and are entitled to receive “vacation” and “health” payments (one-time cash payments), which conscripts do not have.”

Yevhenia Riabeka, coordinator of the volunteer movement “Lawyers of the Armed Forces” who advises the military, mentions another problem of conscripts – vacation.

“The two main issues today are the issue of vacations and financial support. And the most painful thing for them is the inability to resign from military service, to continue it as an enlisted person. Today, a person is deprived of the opportunity to terminate this fixed-term contract and go to serve under the draft,” the lawyer says.

Conscripts can take a vacation of 10 days, excluding travel, once during the period of service.

“And what if a conscript serves for a year or more? This is the conscript's problem,” says Maksym.

According to Tetiana, her son has never been on vacation in 17 months. Instead, thanks to recent changes to the law, mobilized soldiers can take annual leave, as well as leave for family reasons and other valid reasons.

To mobilize or raise salaries?

Several bills in the parliament address the issue of conscripts. One of them, No. 9140, provides for the right of conscripts who have served their term to resign and register at a recruitment center within five days to be discharged, resign, or mobilized.

“This is an idea that the military approached us with – not only conscripts but also guys at the front whose friends were serving nearby. When the 30,000 UAH bonus was canceled, conscripts started receiving 400 to 750 UAH. Our draft law makes it possible to join the Armed Forces directly and go to the front. This will allow you to join the Armed Forces in full, as others do, i.e. to be mobilized. It will also allow them to receive more support and bring our victory closer,” explains the author of the bill, Dmytro Razumkov.

The MP adds that he does not support the complete dismissal of conscripts from service, as they perform important functions in the rear and have more training than those who have not served in the army, so it will be difficult to replace them.

This draft law was criticized by the Main Scientific and Expert Department of the Verkhovna Rada, which suggested that conscripts should not be dismissed from service but rather be offered immediate mobilization.

This is because of fears that some conscripts will not come to the territorial centers to register after being discharged. Mariana Bezuhla, deputy head of the Verkhovna Rada Defense Committee and a member of the Servant of the People party, says that Bill 9140 will probably not be considered because it is populist.

Instead, Yevhenia Riabeka, a lawyer who defends the rights of military personnel, believes that conscripts will show consciousness and understand the need to defend the country.

“We will rely on the consciousness of our citizens and the fact that they will still be subject to the legal provisions on mobilization evasion. If they hide, they will be subject to administrative and criminal liability. They really need to recuperate, stay with their loved ones, and then the state should provide some kind of promotion that anyone should defend our country,” the lawyer explains.

Instead of draft law No. 9140, according to MP Mariana Bezuhla, the committee is developing a variant of raising wages for conscripts and cadets. Indeed, on May 30, the Verkhovna Rada votedto increase the salaries of conscripts to 6,000 hryvnias, but only in the first reading. Next, there will be another vote and the president's signature.

hromadske sent inquiries to the Ministry of Defense and the National Guard about their vision of the future of conscripts, but at the time of publication, no response was received.