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00:00 At just 22, Twix is already a veteran, training new recruits who may be twice his age.
00:08 At least every tenth bullet should be a tracer.
00:11 He says the Ukrainian army's biggest problem is not ammunition.
00:16 We haven't got enough people, categorically not enough.
00:19 We need people because the same guys are having to stay too long on the positions.
00:22 Psychologically they can't cope and physically it's also hard.
00:29 Twix's colleague Izum became an instructor after he was wounded last autumn.
00:34 Weapons are one thing, but what's crucial is to have motivated people who are not afraid,
00:40 who know that they are going to war and may get injured or even die.
00:46 Every cemetery in Ukraine attests to the country's losses.
00:51 Efforts to replenish the ranks through compulsory mobilisation are proving unpopular.
00:57 So the defence ministry is trying a new approach to encourage voluntary enlistment.
01:02 Your current profession?
01:03 Plumber.
01:04 Where people are being mobilised, there's no choice at all.
01:06 They are just serving for their country and the state is choosing which unit and so on.
01:13 Here it's all about choice.
01:15 I'll leave this list with you.
01:17 Some 20 military job centres like this one have already opened across Ukraine.
01:22 I've come to give them a list of vacancies we've got and they will find people for those
01:27 roles.
01:28 It's very useful.
01:29 I've got about 30 vacancies here.
01:33 A new mobilisation law that's about to enter force aims to make the draft harder to avoid.
01:39 Vadim says he feels calmer coming here than just waiting for his call-up papers.
01:44 I've been thinking of enlisting for a while, but I've no military experience.
01:48 So I'd like to start as a driver.
01:50 A leisure?
01:51 I'll be what I'll be.
01:52 I think a lot of men are realising enough with sitting at home, it's time to step up.
02:01 While thousands of men were dodging the draft or even fleeing Ukraine in recent months,
02:05 others were signing up voluntarily to the elite 3rd Assault Brigade, whose nationwide
02:10 advertising campaign attracted so many young candidates that it's able to select only the
02:14 fittest.
02:17 The Defence Ministry hopes to repeat this brigade's recruiting success across the board.
02:23 That report from France 24's Ukraine correspondent Gulliver Cragg, who joins me now from Lviv.
02:28 Gulliver, what do people complain about really when it comes to this mobilisation process?
02:32 It seems like it's not that they just don't want to fight.
02:36 Well, of course, some people really don't want to fight.
02:40 They're simply afraid and the casualty rates make any fear absolutely understandable.
02:46 But when talking about why they aren't happy with the mobilisation, a lot of people do
02:50 mention other aspects of it that they think are unfair.
02:54 We heard in the report the arbitrariness of it, the fact that you just get drafted and
02:58 then sent wherever they decide to send you.
03:01 The sense of not having any control over it is something that bothers a lot of people.
03:04 I've heard of people that I know who've really just been drafted and from one day to the
03:09 next sometimes without even being allowed to go home and get their stuff, they're in
03:13 the army and they're sent to a brigade that they may have heard nothing about before and
03:17 where they're not very happy to be.
03:19 I mean, this belies a big issue in the Ukrainian armed forces, which is that some brigades
03:25 have a much better reputation than others for the conditions, the training they offer,
03:30 the quality of the commanders.
03:31 There are also some commanders who have a very bad reputation.
03:34 We as journalists don't normally get to see those guys.
03:37 You know, the press officers take us to see the brigades that are better, better run and
03:41 have better, perhaps more modern minded commanders.
03:45 But we're constantly hearing about them, about certain brigades being worse and people don't
03:49 want to go to those brigades and so they want to have more choice.
03:53 The problem is that, of course, even the bad brigades do need more people and letting everybody
03:56 choose where they go is not necessarily going to solve that problem.
04:01 But there are, I think, a lot of studies showing that it's actually just a psychological thing,
04:06 that people like to feel that they've got some control, some choice.
04:10 As we saw in the report of Vadim there, you know, he's got no military experience.
04:13 He is prepared to fight.
04:14 He is prepared to hold a gun in his hand.
04:16 But he would prefer to start off as a driver to feel like it's not, you know, just in at
04:20 the deep end right away.
04:23 And I think that's something that really a lot of people can relate to, Gulliver.
04:26 But it is indeed a very difficult context.
04:28 I mean, given all of that, what's the latest you're hearing now from the front lines?
04:33 Well, as you know, this Russian offensive in Kharkiv region is ongoing.
04:38 They crossed the border in two places a few days ago.
04:41 They've taken control of a few settlements in that border region.
04:44 The Ukrainian army admitted today that it had withdrawn to the more strategically advantageous
04:50 positions.
04:51 That's the euphemism that they usually use.
04:54 But that means they are losing territory.
04:56 And the Russians look like they're trying to unite the two places where they crossed
04:59 the border and form one contiguous area in the north of Kharkiv region that they control.
05:05 The city of Vovchansk is very much under threat and may become the first Ukrainian town to
05:09 be occupied twice because it was occupied in 2022, then liberated later that year.
05:14 The fighting is going on there right now.
05:17 The Ukrainians, though, say the Ukrainian military intelligence in particular, that
05:20 they don't think that the Russians have got the forces necessary or the intention to really
05:25 go deeper into Kharkiv region and that they're more likely actually to mount new attacks
05:29 on the border in another region to the northwest of their Sumy region.
05:32 So there are a lot of eyes on Sumy region at the moment.
05:35 And meanwhile, the Russians are inching forward every day a little bit more in Donetsk region.
05:40 But I do say inching.
05:41 They're not making any major gains there for the moment.
05:44 All right, Gulliver, thanks for that.
05:45 That's France 24's Gulliver Craig reporting from Lviv.
05:47 [BLANK_AUDIO]