In the first months after the full-scale invasion of Russia, the Ukrainian army demonstrated a virtual miracle. Most of the servicemen had no combat experience, but they showed themselves to be incredibly professional. However, 18 months have passed, and more and more military experts are speaking out that the Ukrainian government’s principled approach to the war in Ukraine needs to be changed.
For a long time, maybe forever
The first thing to realize is that the war will not end soon. Populists can afford to talk about a few months or half a year, but the government and the people must understand that war is a reality in which they will have to live for years. It is equally likely that for decades. Moreover, the quality of the following decades depends on how quickly this fact will be realized.
Meters and kilometers
Based on the above, it is necessary to change the attitude towards the goal of each battle and global military operations. No matter how painful for the Ukrainians to lose their territories and how much they want to return them as soon as possible, fierce battles for a hundred meters of land with a hundred dead and wounded are irrational. When a war lasts for years, the most important thing is to save the army and the soldiers. A conquered kilometer and a lost unit is not a victory but a defeat unless we are talking about an extremely important strategic point that will provide a significant advantage.
Everyone will be there
The third significant change is the approach to mobilization and demobilization. At the moment, mobilization is like a curse that many men of draft age try their best to avoid. The reason lies not in the lack of desire to defend the Motherland but in the fact that the practice of demobilization currently does not work adequately.
The situation is such that there are currently only two ways for servicemen to leave the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine:
– after receiving a serious injury, the consequence of which is a non-working disability group;
– posthumously.
So, as in the old joke, there are no options to get out of there alive. In fact, after mobilization, a person has very dark prospects. To avoid such a situation, it is necessary to establish terms of service in the army. If the soldiers know that, for example, they will be demobilized in a year or a half, this will change their morale.
In addition, under such practice, the army will gradually become more experienced for several reasons:
– knowing that the majority will have to serve, people would start preparing even in civilian life;
– soldiers with combat experience would share knowledge after demobilization;
– society would be more involved in assisting the Armed Forces of Ukraine because almost every family would be directly faced with this.
Experts recommend introducing such a practice to increase the army’s effectiveness in the coming months.
