Recruiting more soldiers without sufficiently arming them makes no sense - defense expert

Amid the need to boost military recruitment of Ukraine, it is critical to ensure supplies of more weaponry and military equipment to sustain the force.

That’s according to Oleksandr Danylyuk, a Ukrainian defense expert who penned an oped for the RUSI think tank, assessing the current state of Ukraine’s military call-up campaign, as seen by Ukrinform.

“One must recognise that in today's highly mechanised and hi-tech war environment, manpower without weapons and military equipment has no meaning,” the pundit wrote.

He believes Ukraine does need to recruit more personnel to the Armed Forces to replenish losses, noting that initiatives such as ‘Reserve+’ (an electronic database of potential conscripts) demonstrate that the government is capable of doing this.

At the same time, the expert stresses the need to ensure a proper level of equipment supplies for the newly formed units, which is critical for their combat effectiveness.

“There are still more than 30 territorial defence brigades in the Armed Forces, armed only with small arms and mortars, although they could be transformed into full-fledged mechanised brigades if they were to be provided with armoured vehicles, artillery, electronic warfare equipment and so on,” the expert argues. “The insufficient amount of weapons and military equipment is also a problem for regular brigades.”

As an example, he recalls that the 14 reserve brigades Ukraine has set up cannot be deployed in combat zones due to the delay in the delivery of equipment promised by partners.

“Success depends in the end not only on the improvement of Ukrainian recruiting, but also on the quality of Western logistics,” Danylyuk concludes.

As Ukrinform reported earlier, the U.S. has announced a $125 million security assistance package for Ukraine.

Also, Lithuania’s defense ministry pledged a new “robust” batch of military aid to Ukraine set to be delivered before the end of August.