EDITORIAL: Ukraine's Military Reform Betrays Those Who Have Fought Since 2022

Four years on the front for an impossible rotation

They enlisted in February 2022, many of them voluntarily, in the first hours of their country's defense. They held Mariupol, defended Kharkiv, resisted in Donbas. Four years later, they are still there. And the military reform that Ukraine just announced — supposed to reward their service, regularize combat conditions — frustrates them more than it satisfies them. This is a wound that propaganda cannot heal.

The reform introduces new contracts at 6, 10, 14 and 24 months, an increase in frontline pay up to 300,000 hryvnias per month (approximately $6,700), with a maximum of 460,000 hryvnias ($10,200) for the highest front-line ranks. It grants one month of deferral per year of service completed since June 2022. On paper, this is progress. In the trenches, it feels like a slap.

The gap between the promise and the reality

The soldiers who have been fighting since the full-scale invasion wanted one thing: the possibility of going home. Of seeing their families again. Of breathing. The reform does not give them that. It gives them a bonus, a renewed contractual framework and one month of deferral per year. For a soldier who has served four years, that amounts to four months of deferral. No demobilization. No full rotation. Just a partial acknowledgment of a total sacrifice.

We must be honest about what this means: the Ukrainian government knows it cannot demobilize long-serving troops without risking the collapse of the front lines. Fedorov said so himself without euphemism: "We can't release everyone who has been fighting since 2022 at once, or the front line would simply collapse." That is true. And it is also a life sentence for those who gave everything from day one.

I understand the military logic of this decision. I am not contesting it. But I refuse to sugarcoat it. Telling a soldier who has been fighting since 2022 that he will receive four months of deferral over an indefinite period of service is telling him he has no exit. This is a sacrifice Ukrainian society is imposing on him — and it owes him at least the brutal truth of that reality.

A number that tells everything official communiqués hide

A figure must be put on the table: according to statements reported as of January 14, 2026, Ukraine had approximately 200,000 military personnel in AWOL status. This is not a statistical footnote. It is the sign of a massive breakdown of trust between the military institution and the men it mobilizes. Soldiers who decided, individually or collectively, that the conditions of their service were unacceptable.

These 200,000 are not all cowards. Many are men who served honorably, who watched comrades die, who waited for a rotation that never came. Men who ultimately voted with their feet against an institution that treated them as indefinitely renewable resources rather than human beings with limits. The current reform must be read in part as a response to this phenomenon.

The new pay structure: necessary but insufficient

The pay increase is real and welcome. 300,000 hryvnias per month for a frontline fighter in Ukraine is substantial — approximately $6,700 at the current rate, in a country where the median salary was a few hundred dollars before the war. For some soldiers from economically disadvantaged regions, this is more than they would have earned in a decade of peacetime work.

But money does not replace safety. It does not replace the promise of a possible return. It does not replace the ability to plan a future, to tell one's family when one will come home. For soldiers who have been fighting since 2022, the bonus will ring hollow as long as there is no clear mechanism of rotation or demobilization. Money is compensation. What they need is a horizon.

Ukraine finds itself in a position I would not wish on any government: it must either lie to its soldiers or tell them a truth that breaks their morale. Between the two, it has chosen a third path — pay them better to make the impossible a little more bearable. That is pragmatic. It is also profoundly sad.

The 425th Assault Regiment: 26 non-combat deaths in six months

Against this tense backdrop, the scandal of the 425th Separate Assault Regiment — known as "Skelia" — landed like a bomb. On June 23, 2026, investigative outlet Babel published a report revealing at least 26 non-combat deaths among Skelia recruits over the past six months. Allegations of abuse and torture of conscripts were also reported, citing testimonies from families and former soldiers.

The institutional response was swift: on June 24, the regiment's commander, Lieutenant Colonel Yurii Harkaviy, was suspended from his duties. On June 25, the National Bureau of Investigation opened a preliminary inquiry into potential abuse of authority under martial law. Skelia is one of Ukraine's largest assault formations, with more than 10,000 soldiers, regularly deployed in high-intensity operations. It had been expanded under the orders of Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrsky.

The regiment's response and its contradictions

The regiment attempted to minimize the facts: of the 26 deaths cited, Skelia claimed that 18 occurred in hospital or en route to medical facilities, attributed to "illness or poor health" of mobilized soldiers. That is technically a response. It is also a response that raises more questions than it answers. Why were 18 soldiers in poor health placed in an elite assault regiment? Who validated their fitness for service?

This affair reveals the deep contradictions of a large-scale forced mobilization. Ukraine needs soldiers. It therefore also draws them from among those who, in other circumstances, would never have been declared fit for service. And some of these men died — not under Russian bullets but in conditions that the military institution must explain to Ukrainian society and its partners.

Skelia is a combat unit that has fought with courage in some of the hardest battles of this war. I am not questioning the collective valor of the regiment. But 26 non-combat deaths in six months in a unit of 10,000 soldiers goes beyond the "accident" framework. It calls for a firm institutional response, not communications officers' press releases.

6, 10, 14, 24 months — but going where?

The new contracts at 6, 10, 14 and 24 months represent an attempt to structure the relationship between the soldier and the state within a war of undetermined duration. The idea is sound: instead of an implicit open-ended commitment, soldiers now know for how long they are formally enlisted. That is a genuine advance in contractual clarity.

But the structure raises a question that no one officially asks: what happens at contract expiration? In theory, the soldier can leave. In practice, with a front line under constant pressure and persistent personnel shortages, the pressure to renew will be immense. The contractual structure gives the appearance of choice. It does not guarantee that choice in fact.

Forced mobilization as a persistent horizon

The context of mandatory mobilization does not disappear with the reform. Men of fighting age still cannot leave Ukraine freely. Call-ups continue. The personnel shortage remains chronic. Against this backdrop, the new fixed-term contracts look less like a liberalization than a formalization of an existing constraint.

This is not a criticism of military necessity. It is an observation about political communication. The Ukrainian government presented these reforms as an improvement in service conditions — and they are, marginally. But presenting them as a response to the frustrations of long-serving soldiers without addressing the central question of rotation is shooting itself in the foot communicationally.

I understand Zelensky is in an impossible position. Promising a demobilization he cannot deliver would be criminal. But promising a reform that does not address the core problem while selling it as a solution is dangerous for cohesion. Ukrainian soldiers are not naive. They read. They see. They know.

One month of deferral per year: the arithmetic of a gilded cage

The deferral mechanism granted by the reform — one month per year of service completed, calculated from June 2022 — deserves a simple arithmetic examination. A soldier who enlisted in March 2022 and served four years is entitled to four months of cumulative deferral. This means he can request to be pulled from the front for four months — not demobilized, simply delayed in his reassignment.

For a man who has spent four years without watching his children grow up, without being able to attend family funerals, without being able to plan anything beyond the next trench rotation, four months of deferral does not represent proportional recognition. It represents a microscopic gift in exchange for a sacrifice of historical dimensions.

Allies drawing lessons for their own future

Ukraine's Western partners are watching this situation with an interest that goes beyond solidarity. Countries like Poland, Finland and the Baltic states are thinking about their own mobilization models in a context of increased threat. Ukraine's mistakes and successes in managing military human resources constitute a real-time case study that few military institutions can afford to ignore.

The most important lesson so far: the sustainability of a mobilized armed force depends as much on soldiers' trust in the institution as on their equipment or training. A soldier who believes in his contract fights better than a soldier who feels betrayed by his government. This simple truth has profound implications for the reform underway.

If I were advising Zelensky on this file, I would tell him one thing: painful transparency is better than an impossible promise. Tell your soldiers exactly what you can and cannot offer them. They were brave enough to survive Bakhmut. They deserve the truth about their future.

A de facto amnesty that dares not say its name

The question of AWOL soldiers is directly linked to the reform. 200,000 absent men represent a massive operational loss — the equivalent of several dozen combat brigades. The reform implicitly sends these men a message: conditions are changing, salaries are rising, contracts are being clarified. Come back.

This is a smarter approach than pure repression, which has shown its limits. Thousands of judicial proceedings have not reversed the trend. Addressing the grievances that pushed these men to desert is a more promising strategy. It remains to be seen whether the current improvements are perceived as sufficiently substantial to convince soldiers who made the wrenching choice to break with their unit.

Social shame as a mobilization tool

Ukrainian society maintains considerable social pressure on men of fighting age. Looks in the street, neighbors' questions, family pressure — in communities bound together by war, these informal mechanisms are powerful. The reform now provides an additional argument: returning under clarified contracts with improved pay is less humiliating than remaining on the margins.

The combination of economic carrot and social pressure could effectively reduce the number of unauthorized absences in coming months. But if the reform is perceived as insufficient — if the 200,000 men calculate that even with a 300,000-hryvnia bonus, an open-ended commitment is unacceptable — then the numbers will not change.

We talk about 200,000 deserters as a military problem. It is also a profound moral problem. These men decided that the survival of their own families took precedence over national obligation. That is not a cowardly decision — it is a human one. And it raises questions that a pay reform alone cannot answer.

Israel, Taiwan, Finland — the models in question

Supporters of the reform often cite the military service models of other countries facing existential threats. Israel with its mobilization and reserve system; Taiwan with its extension of mandatory service; Finland with its total defense model. What distinguishes Ukraine from these examples is that these countries had decades to build their systems in peacetime. Ukraine is building them under fire.

The fundamental difference is also structural: Israel has an established rotation system that allows almost all reservists to know when they will be called up and for how long. Ukraine does not yet have this level of institutional predictability. Building this system during an intense war of attrition is a colossal administrative challenge that few nations could have met.

What Ukraine does remarkably well

It would be unfair not to recognize the positive aspects. Ukraine has maintained a professional and motivated army despite unprecedented pressures. Its capacity for military innovation — drones, electronic warfare, long-range strikes — has no equivalent in a conflict of this scale since World War II. And the very fact that this reform is being publicly debated, that outlets like Babel can investigate and publish revelations about the Skelia scandal without censorship, says something important about Ukraine's democratic robustness.

In Putin's Russia, a journalist who published the equivalent of the Babel report on a Russian regiment would be in prison by the next morning. This contrast is not rhetorical. It is substantive. It explains why, despite all its imperfections, Ukraine deserves the support of democracies.

The Skelia scandal, paradoxically, is a demonstration of democratic strength as much as an institutional failure. A free press that investigates, an investigation bureau that opens proceedings, a commander suspended — all of this happening during a war for national survival. Try to find that on the other side of the front lines.

Associations of mobilized soldiers as a counterweight

The reform is partly the product of pressure from families of mobilized soldiers. Associations of soldiers' wives, fighters' mothers and support organizations for the mobilized have exercised growing public pressure on the Ukrainian government since 2023. They have demonstrated, lobbied parliamentarians and used social media to document service conditions and their loved ones' frustrations.

This pressure did not achieve everything. But it contributed to keeping the issue of mobilized soldiers' rights on the political agenda. In a democracy at war, fighters' families are a legitimate counterweight — perhaps the most powerful of all. Their vigilance has made it impossible to treat long-serving soldiers as mere pieces to be moved on a map.

The generational dimension of the conflict

A rarely discussed aspect of this reform is its generational dimension. The men who have been fighting since 2022 are mostly between 25 and 55 years old. They represent the productive core of Ukrainian society. Their prolonged absence has consequences for the economy, for families, for birth rates, for collective mental health. Military reform cannot be separated from a broader reflection on how to rebuild a society that has put its entire generation in service of its survival.

This will be the challenge of post-war Ukraine — and it is already arriving, as some regions begin planning reconstruction even as fighting continues. How to reintegrate hundreds of thousands of traumatized soldiers? How to recognize the sacrifices of some without crushing the uncertainties of others? The current reform is a hesitant first step in this direction.

I think of those Ukrainian women who have been waiting for a husband to return for four years. Who are raising children alone, managing farms, businesses, entire families while the man of the house is in a Donbas trench. They are not asking for much. Just to know when he will come home. The reform does not yet give them that answer.

300,000 hryvnias — but what is the hryvnia worth?

The salary of 300,000 hryvnias is impressive in absolute Ukrainian figures. But it must be contextualized. The hryvnia has undergone significant devaluation since 2022. Inflation in Ukraine has been substantial. The real purchasing power of this sum, in a war economy where prices of certain goods have exploded, is less spectacular than it appears. It remains honorable compensation — but not the jackpot it might seem at first read.

There is also the question of effective salary transmission. Delays in payments, administrative complications, cases where salaries did not reach soldiers on time have been documented in preceding years. The reform is only as good as its administrative execution permits. And wartime administration is rarely perfect.

Corruption as a systemic threat

The specter of corruption looms over every discussion of reform in Ukraine. Not because Ukraine is uniquely corrupt — it is actively combating this problem — but because massive wartime money flows create diversion opportunities. Investigations have revealed cases of corruption in military procurement, in equipment distribution, in fraudulent medical exemptions.

Scandals like Skelia are not unrelated to this reality. When a military institution can conceal 26 deaths for six months, it means internal control and transparency mechanisms are insufficient. The necessary institutional reform extends far beyond salary structures. It touches governance, accountability and the organizational culture of the Ukrainian army.

Let us be clear: corruption in Ukraine is not an excuse to abandon Ukraine. No country at war is perfect. The United States had its own military contract scandals in Iraq. What matters is the trajectory — and Ukraine is moving in the right direction, slowly, painfully, but genuinely.

The National Bureau of Investigation as sentinel

The opening of a preliminary inquiry by the National Bureau of Investigation into the Skelia scandal is an important signal. It says that Ukraine does not tolerate impunity in its ranks — even in wartime, even in an elite unit regularly deployed in high-intensity combat zones. This is a message to all commanders: abuse has consequences.

If the inquiry leads to credible prosecutions and real sanctions, it will reinforce the trust of mobilized soldiers in existing protection mechanisms. If it ends inconclusively — a temporary suspension, a few symbolic disciplinary measures, a buried report — it will deepen the rift between soldiers and their institution.

The need for an independent military ombudsman

What the Skelia case reveals, beyond the scandal itself, is the absence of a robust institutional mechanism for reporting and protecting soldiers who denounce abuse. The fact that the affair was revealed by an independent investigative outlet — and not through internal military channels — says everything about the state of internal control mechanisms.

Ukraine would need an independent military ombudsman, with real investigative powers, protected from institutional pressures, accessible to soldiers and their families. This is not a democratic luxury. It is a functional necessity for a large army mobilizing hundreds of thousands of civilians.

Democracy does not stop at the barracks gate. Ukrainian soldiers who risk their lives to defend a rule-of-law state themselves deserve the protections of that state. A military ombudsman is not a sign of weakness. It is a sign of institutional maturity.

Western aid and governance requirements

The countries supporting Ukraine — United States, European Union, United Kingdom, Germany — have all formally attached good governance conditions to their aid. Anti-corruption reforms, independent justice, press freedom. But conditions tied to military human resource management have largely stayed in the shadows of public discussions.

The Skelia scandal and the frustration of long-serving troops should enter this dialogue. Not to make aid conditional on perfect reforms — that would be counterproductive. But to signal clearly that Ukraine's partners are attentive to how it treats its own soldiers. This is a question of consistency between the values Ukraine claims to defend and the practices it tolerates internally.

The Ukrainian army's international image

The Ukrainian army has earned a remarkable international reputation since 2022. Its resistance against a numerically far superior conventional army, its tactical and technological innovation, its collectively documented courage have generated genuine admiration in Western capitals. This reputation is a precious diplomatic asset that scandals like Skelia erode.

Managing this asset prudently also means showing that Ukraine can investigate its own shortcomings and remedy them. Doing so transparently — as was the case with the suspension of the commander and the opening of an inquiry — is exactly the right approach. But the inquiry's conclusions must be public and the sanctions must be real.

Ukraine cannot afford to lose the confidence of its allies on internal governance matters. Not because these allies are perfect — they are not. But because in the current diplomatic balance of power, morality is a real asset. And Skelia is a breach of that morality that cannot be swept under the rug.

Why would a soldier sign up for two years?

The 24-month contract is the longest option offered by the reform. In theory, it offers the greatest temporal clarity — a soldier knows for how long he is enlisted. In practice, it represents a considerable bet for someone who has already spent years on the front without a prospect of exit. For a long-serving soldier to choose this contract voluntarily, he must believe in two things: that the promised conditions will be honored, and that after the 24 months, he will actually be able to leave.

This trust is not a given. It will have to be built on concrete cases — soldiers who signed a six-month contract, who saw the promised salaries arrive on time, who could take their deferral months when they requested them, and who were not unilaterally kept beyond their contract on grounds of operational necessity. Trust is earned in the details.

The signal to new recruits

The reform also sends a signal to men who have not yet been mobilized — those hiding, delaying their paperwork, seeking exemptions. The implicit message is: if you come voluntarily now, with defined contracts, you are in a better position than if you wait for the next wave of forced mobilization. This is a rational calculation that some will accept.

But this calculation only works if the state honors its end of the contract. If soldiers find that their contracts are violated, if deferral months are refused, if salaries are not paid — the signal will turn against itself. Information will circulate in communities. And the next wave of voluntary mobilization will be even harder.

Institutional trust may be the rarest asset in wartime. It cannot be decreed. It is built over time, through consistency, through keeping promises made to the most vulnerable people in the military chain — the ordinary soldiers. The reform is a first step. What matters now is execution.

An untapped potential in the national defense effort

Ukraine's military reform of June 2026 raises a question that few editorialists dare ask frankly: why is Ukraine, facing an unprecedented personnel crisis — 200,000 AWOL soldiers, insufficient rotations, mobilization struggling to meet its targets — continuing to exclude women from mandatory mobilization? Officially, women can enlist voluntarily, and thousands have done so with remarkable courage. But mandatory military service remains exclusively male in Ukrainian law, while men of fighting age are barred from leaving the country.

This legal asymmetry creates a real social tension in a Ukrainian society fighting for its survival. Men aged 18 to 60 cannot leave Ukraine, while women of the same age are free to move. In legal terms, this difference is defensible — war conventions distinguish obligations by sex. In terms of the social and psychological burden imposed on men and their families, this asymmetry deserves to be discussed openly, not avoided out of political delicacy.

Historical precedents and their relevance for Ukraine

Ukraine is not the first democracy to face this debate. Israel has imposed mixed military service since 1948, with adaptations for the orthodox and differentiated roles by gender. Norway and Denmark have introduced mandatory military service for women since 2015. These examples show that it is possible to design models that broaden the mobilization base without placing all women on the front line of combat.

The Ukrainian reform could have opened this debate — at least created a working group, a national consultation, a public discussion. It did not. This silence is not a neutral decision: it is a political choice that maintains a burden asymmetry that long-serving male soldiers experience as one more injustice. In the context of the reform, failing to address this question is leaving a legitimate grievance unanswered.

I am not claiming that Ukrainian women should be sent to the front in place of men. That is a caricature that no one seriously defends. But I find it troubling that a major military reform did not even dare address the question of an expanded female contribution — in logistics, intelligence, cyber, administration. This political silence has a social cohesion cost that the Zelensky government will have to bear.

A blind spot of the reform: soldiers released from Russian captivity

Ukraine's military reform of June 2026 does not address — or addresses insufficiently — the fate of Ukrainian soldiers released from Russian captivity through prisoner exchanges. More than 3,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been released since the start of the conflict through laboriously negotiated swaps. These soldiers return in an often precarious physical and psychological state — victims of documented torture, malnutrition and multiple traumas. Their reintegration into the military institution is a humanitarian and institutional challenge that the reform barely touches.

Former prisoners of war return to a system with few mental health resources to receive them. The Medical Corps of the Ukrainian Armed Forces is already overwhelmed by treating the physically wounded. Units specialized in psychotraumatology remain insufficient despite the efforts of NATO and international NGOs to train professionals. These soldiers released from captivity face a system that does not always know what to do with them — send them back to combat quickly or grant them the recovery time they need.

The ambiguous legal status of long-term veterans

Beyond prisoners of war, the reform leaves unresolved the precise legal status of Ukrainian soldiers engaged since 2022 — those who fought under the emergency mobilization regime, without the formal protections of regular contracts. These soldiers — perhaps 150,000 to 200,000 people — find themselves in a legal grey zone: neither fully under contract in the new regime, nor released from their obligations. The reform was supposed to clarify this status. It did so partially, without resolving all the ambiguities.

This legal ambiguity has concrete consequences: on pension rights, on conditions of eventual demobilization, on recognition of injuries and traumas. Military law specialists in Ukraine have publicly flagged these gaps in the weeks following the reform announcement — signaling that some soldiers might find themselves in a legally less protected situation after the reform than before it, if the implementing texts do not fill the identified voids.

The Ukrainian state asks its soldiers a sacrifice that goes beyond anything a modern democracy normally demands of its citizens. It owes them in return absolute legal clarity about their rights, status and conditions of exit. Legal grey zones are not an administrative detail — they are a breach of moral contract. And in a war lasting more than four years, breaches of moral contract accumulate with devastating effects on cohesion.

What the reform actually achieves

Let us be fair in the verdict. Ukraine's military reform represents a genuine improvement in formal service conditions. Salaries increase substantially. The contractual structure is clarified. The deferral mechanism, even if insufficient, formally acknowledges the duration of service of first-day veterans. These are tangible advances, achieved in extraordinarily difficult circumstances.

The Zelensky government made difficult choices in a context that left only bad options. Maintaining a functioning army while managing the frustration of long-serving troops, while continuing to mobilize new recruits, while reforming the institution after scandals like Skelia — this is a remarkable institutional balancing act, even if imperfect.

What the reform does not resolve

The reform does not resolve the fundamental question of rotation and demobilization. It does not resolve the crisis of trust between long-serving soldiers and their institution. It does not create the independent oversight mechanisms needed to prevent new scandals like Skelia. And it does not address the 200,000 absent without permission with enough courage or generosity to hope of convincing large numbers of them to return.

This is a management reform, not a visionary reform. It manages the immediate problem without fundamentally transforming the relationship between the state and its soldiers. For that, a deeper national conversation would be needed about what Ukrainian society owes those who gave everything — and how it intends to repay them beyond a monthly bonus.

Ukraine deserves an honest verdict: this reform is a real advance achieved under impossible conditions, by a government that does not have the luxury of perfection. But it is not enough. Ukrainian soldiers have given their lives, their youth, their health for their country's survival. They deserve more than improved salaries and ambiguous contracts. They deserve a reform commensurate with their sacrifice. That is not yet the case.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a columnist and analyst. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. I claim analytical clarity, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

Method and sources

This text keeps the basic distinction between verified facts and interpretive analysis. The rule never changes: a factual claim is published only when a verifiable source supports it, and the sources this article actually used are listed under Sources, never here.

Primary source families used by the publication, when the story has them: official statements from governments and international institutions, public statements by political leaders, reports from intergovernmental organisations, dispatches from recognised international news agencies.

Secondary source families: specialised publications, internationally recognised news media, analyses from established research institutions, reports from industry organisations.

When an article cites statistical, economic or geopolitical data, it comes from the institutions that produce it (intergovernmental organisations, central banks, national statistics offices), and the exact institution is named under Sources.

Nature of the analysis

The analyses, interpretations and perspectives in the analytical sections of this article are a critical, contextual synthesis based on the information available, the trends observed and the expert comments cited in the sources consulted.

My role is to interpret these facts, to set them in the context of today's geopolitical and economic dynamics, and to give them a coherent meaning within the larger story of the changes shaping our time. These analyses reflect expertise built through continuous observation of international affairs and an understanding of the strategic mechanisms that drive global actors.

This article describes a documented state of affairs on its publication date, not a prediction: later developments may shift its outlook. No update is promised in advance; when an article is corrected or completed, the change is dated in the text.