The Ukrainian government plans to change hiring practices in an effort to maintain the military’s combat effectiveness after nearly two years of war with Russia, The Guardian reports.

The changes, expected to be announced this week, will include using private recruitment firms for more targeted mobilization and ensuring recruits are assigned roles that match their skills rather than simply being sent, a senior official said. to the front

“Some people are afraid, afraid to die, afraid to shoot, but that doesn’t mean they can’t do other activities. Now we have a new minister with a new approach,” Oleksiy Danilov, Secretary of the NSDC, told The Guardian.

In early September, President Volodymyr Zelenskyi fired Oleksiy Reznikov, who had held the post of defense minister since the beginning of the war, and replaced him with Rustem Umerov, who spent the first part of the war working on – unsuccessfully – negotiations with Russia. Zelenskyi said on Friday that he expects Umerov’s ministry to provide him with a new mobilization policy package this week.

“The plan will be worked out and all the answers will be available – I will see this plan next week,” Zelensky said at the press conference, without giving details.

Danilov noted that the army will cooperate with the two largest personnel companies of Ukraine to identify people with specific skills and repel qualified Ukrainians who want to help the army, but do not want to go to the front, are trying to evade the draft. “Mobilization will become more flexible, those specialties that are needed will be announced, and people will apply for a specific position. For example, they need welders or locksmiths and so on,” Danilov explained.

A source in the Ministry of Defense confirmed that contracts were signed with staffing firms, but did not give details. It was not immediately clear how much recruiting firms would be involved in the process, nor what level of overall frontline recruitment would continue.

What do Ukrainians do to escape from the front

Zelensky’s announcement came at a time when Ukraine is preparing to face a new war winter, with general fatigue at the front and among society as a whole. Ukraine’s counteroffensive over the summer and fall has failed to recover significant territory, and there is growing private speculation among Ukraine’s Western partners that sooner or later Kyiv may have to consider trying to end the war through negotiations.

In the first months of the war, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians volunteered to fight, part of a wave of patriotic determination that shocked Russia and repelled its initial attacks. But the war continued, most of those willing to fight had already signed up, and many of those who were already at the front were wounded or exhausted.

Increasingly, the army had to resort to mobilization to replenish its ranks. Videos that went viral showed men being picked up off the street to be recruited, and there were numerous corruption scandals in which officials took bribes to grant dismissals. In August, Zelensky dismissed all regional heads of personnel services.

After being recruited, Ukrainians have several weeks of training, and then they can be sent to the front. Many say they would join the army if drafted, but many men of draft age do not want to go to the front and hide at home for weeks or months at a time, trying to avoid roving squads of mobilization agents. Many join Telegram groups where people share tips about where mobbing agencies are working on a given day.

In the summer, sources in Odesa explained a popular scheme in the city, according to which, for a fee of $5,000 in cash, men who did not want to serve received a false medical report with serious spinal problems, according to which they were declared exempt from the draft. and allowed to leave the country.

Danilov acknowledged that there was a recruitment problem, but said that Russian propaganda had exaggerated the extent of the problem. “Russia is trying to heat up this issue, saying that we don’t have enough soldiers, that we have problems with mobilization. There are always problems in life, let’s not overestimate them,” he said.

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