The walking disaster: Inside Ukraine’s crisis of unfit recruits
“A normal situation now is that, roughly speaking, out of 10 people we are given, three are limited fitness, two have drug addiction, two have gone AWOL… In a word, it is a disaster,” says Roman Kovaliov, commander of a separate rifle battalion.
Complaints about the quality of the mobilization resource have long been heard in conversations with service members at various levels. Some “heartfelt cries” that I heard more than a year ago went like this:
“At the personnel reception point, it is simply terrible. Someone has an epileptic seizure. Someone is in such a drugged state that they scored five ‘strikes’ out of six on the test. Well, we sent those back, but they were accepted somewhere. Because once they enter the [territorial recruitment center] system, they are already in the army, and it is impossible to send them home,” one brigade told hromadske on condition of anonymity.
Now, against the backdrop of a deep mobilization crisis and failed communication, the situation has worsened.
“Right now, this is turning not into defense of the country but into systemic absurdity. Units are bursting at the seams, and medics are turning into nannies for the seriously ill, who should never have been mobilized in the first place. Simply because someone ‘up top’ decided that statistics are more important than common sense,” Alina Mykhailova, commander of the medical service Ulf of the 108th separate battalion “Da Vinci Wolves,” wrote without mincing words.
Why is the story of one unit receiving about 2,000 unfit men not an isolated incident but a depressing trend? How much is the state losing because of it? Will the old approaches and formal military medical commissions fade into the past? And how does the Defense Ministry plan to reform the system to make mobilization more effective?
“70% are limited-fitness troops being stuffed into brigades”
Dmytro Kostiurov was tasked with forming a drone systems battalion from scratch. People arrived in mid-November. The commander says that if he had not opened his own recruiting effort, the situation would have been dire.
“When I saw who they gave me at the beginning — people with various diagnoses: someone had crooked fingers, hypertension, schizophrenia, one had a stoma and a colostomy bag — I did not know what to do with them, because they had zero connection to UAVs. Then I went to the brigade commander and said: ‘We will form the battalion ourselves.’ They should not be giving me such people,” says Kostiurov, commander of the drone systems battalion in the 29th Separate Heavy Mechanized Brigade.
Those sent by the TRC are simply a walking disaster. The quality is zero. The motivation is zero. That is, about 70% are limited-fitness troops being stuffed into the brigade. And then the brigade cannot do anything with them. It has to deal with them, and they walk around hospitals and draw a salary. Dmytro Kostiurov, commander of the drone systems battalion, 29th Separate Heavy Mechanized Brigade
Since the official status of “limited fitness” has not existed for nearly two years, this refers to those whom military medical commissions, based on various diagnoses, deem either fully fit or fit for service in support units, TRCs or military educational institutions. All such individuals, Dmytro says, were sent to rear units, and some were directed to a repeat medical commission, after which they managed — by hook or by crook — to be discharged from the army. But it became a lesson, and the battalion decided to recruit people on its own.
“We opened our own recruiting through TikTok. We are taking people who have gone into the AWOL category. In two and a half months, 1,400 people filled out questionnaires. Out of those, we selected about 200 people and managed to bring them into the battalion,” Kostiurov shares. He says it is better this way than when they try to foist the unfit on you.
“Here is a fresh example. A ‘new guy’ arrived on February 12. But he has not even been to the training ground once. He is being hospitalized for the third time: lung problems,” battalion commander Roman Kovaliov says on his end.
Ineffective mobilization, he says, not only reduces defense capability but also places an enormous burden on the Defense Forces.
“This is a black hole. I cannot give figures because it is a military secret. But the problem is terribly serious: the inefficiency of the entire machine in principle. Imagine how much money is spent to bring one conscript here. A salary of 20,000 plus 30,000 ($454-681) if he is in a combat mission area, plus 140 hryvnias ($3) per day for food, plus every day they usually go for treatment because of a bunch of chronic illnesses. And then they begin actively receiving treatment at state expense. The TRCs should have been ‘weeding out’ all this. But they need to meet their quota. So they drag in everyone they can.”
That said, Roman Kovaliov adds, the latest reinforcements to the battalion have been sensible.
“Right now, in a month and a half, they have given me as many people as usually come in half a year. And these are average: no young guys, but at least without disabilities. Has this become the system? I am not ready to say yet.”
Have 2,000 drug addicts been mobilized?
A high-profile case was the information from the military commissioner that one military unit had mobilized 2,000 men who, according to preliminary data, were unfit for service.
In response to a request from hromadske, the Office of the Military Ombudsperson clarified that among the mobilized were people with drug addiction as well as those on opioid maintenance therapy.
“They entered the military with conclusions from military medical commissions declaring them fit or ‘limited fit.’ At the same time, according to Defense Ministry Order No. 402, they should have been recognized as unfit for military service,” the response states.
And this is not an isolated case.
The situation is already critical, since a significant number of individuals who, according to medical indicators, should not undergo military service are already in units. Office of the Military Ombudsperson
When asked who bears responsibility in this situation and whether anyone has been punished, the Office of the Military Ombudsperson says an interagency inspection is underway. It involves the Defense Ministry’s Health Department and the Land Forces Command. They promise to study the problem comprehensively and prepare proposals for changes to current legislation.
“It is necessary to fully examine how this happened, at what stage this mass violation occurred. Was it at the TRC stage, the military medical commission, the military unit, or was there a decision made somewhere higher up?” military commissioner Olha Reshetylova said.
No need for quality – just quantity
Do the TRCs acknowledge the problem? Do they have a “normative indicator” that must be met no matter what?
Our source in one district TRC, who works in the notification group, acknowledges: “The volunteers have run out.” They say they mobilize whoever is available. And seven out of 10 have health problems.
“Everyone the police mostly bring in now, ‘the draft dodgers’, are outcasts. All the healthy, fit ones (morally, mentally, and health-wise) have actually run out. We do not take drug addicts. And we do not have ‘express medical commissions’ in 15 minutes. Usually, it takes two or three hours to go through nine doctors. Maybe somewhere, they really do military medical commissions on the fly just to deliver the numbers. We offer a higher-quality product than a quantity-focused one. That is why we suffer,” one TRC officer says on condition of anonymity.
“You suffer because you are not meeting the plan?” I clarify.
Because our leadership does not set a plan for us, like we have to catch five people a day, come hell or high water. But they get chewed out ‘from above.’ And up there are victims of the ‘Soviet’ system who usually need quantity. They do not need quality at all. TRC officer
“Well, we need to conscript 12 people a day for the district. That is not a lot. But if the villages are empty?.. The average indicator is three or four people. And sometimes not a single one.
This is not the kind of plan where you watch videos and are stunned by what is happening in Dnipro, where people are grabbed into a van, and only then, inside, they figure out what their documents say. I do not support such arbitrariness.”
According to his statistics, military medical commissions now deem the majority of mobilized individuals (65-70%) fit for rear units. These are men aged 35 to 50. Younger people are fully fit.
“People had heart problems. One cadet had a metal plate in his hand. And they are fully fit,” says Vlad Tulisov, senior instructor at the 190th Training Center of the Unmanned Systems Forces, about those the TRCs sometimes deliver to training centers.
At the basic military training stage they cannot turn such people away: they are sent for a repeat military medical commission only in the brigade.
We send to the brigades the people we are given. We cannot keep them for ourselves, right? Whoever the TRC brings us — we work with them for 50 days and then send them to combat brigades. They cannot refuse there either. If an order comes from higher command to send such soldiers to such-and-such brigade.Vladyslav Tulisov, senior instructor at the 190th Training Center of the Unmanned Systems Forces
“We have the right not to accept someone if the person is completely crippled. That happens rarely. But there was a case where they brought a person on crutches. We did not accept him,” Vladyslav says.
The instructor has questions about the work of both the TRCs and the MMCs. He says that in reality more than half of the mobilized people are now limited-fitness.
The digital reform of military medical commissions launched a year ago. However, there is no effective oversight of doctors’ actions. People with serious illnesses end up in combat units, and the Health Ministry does not track how many such people are deemed fit — those were the conclusions of a study by the Media Initiative for Human Rights. We sent a request to the Health Ministry regarding the results of the MMC reform but had not received a response by publication time.
What changes the Defense Ministry plans
Meanwhile, the Defense Ministry assures that the military medical expertise procedure is gradually changing. Digitalization is underway and rules for medical examinations are being optimized.
“Active work is currently underway to analyze errors and misunderstandings that occurred during medical examinations by military medical commissions at TRCs, and to develop a systemic solution that will make it possible to correct the mistakes made and prevent new ones in the future,” the Defense Ministry’s response to hromadske states.
They noted that a MMC only determines fitness for service, so in the absence of complaints and medical documents about illnesses the commission may limit itself to basic tests and a basic examination by doctors. If the real state of health is not taken into account in a MMC conclusion, it can be appealed pre-trial (at a regional or Central MMC) or through the courts.
At the same time, the Medical Forces of the Armed Forces do not keep statistics on how often it is possible to appeal MMC decisions. But they assure that to improve the quality of medical examinations, checks are conducted. And control groups for MMC conduct have been created.
“In 2025, 318 inspections of the activities of the military medical examinations at the territorial recruitment centers were conducted. Based on the results of the work carried out, in particular, based on the results of the aforementioned inspections, more than 130 heads of the military medical examinations were reappointed (changed).”
The ministry also outlined steps to raise the quality of the mobilization pool and improve selection, medical oversight, and training. These include:
- Better data sharing between the Oberih system, National Police, and State Border Guard Service databases for instant checks at checkpoints.
- Full operation of the electronic cabinet in the Reserve+ app, allowing updates to contact details and residence without visiting a recruitment center.
- Giving military medical commission doctors access to patients' digital medical histories from civilian health facilities.
- Transitioning from mass notifications to the principle of professional matching, so recruitment centers prioritize specialists such as drivers, signalers, medics, and IT experts based on the current needs of defense units.
- Integrating registries to show a conscript's civilian profession, education, and actual health status in the Oberih system.
- Developing clear coordination between recruitment centers, police, and military command bodies.
“This is necessary to implement a system of targeted notifications for conscripts, which will increase the effectiveness of mobilization measures and reduce social tension,” the Defense Ministry said.
hromadske has sent a follow-up request for details on what the shift from mass notifications to professional matching will look like in practice and whether it represents a fundamental change to mobilization.
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