SUBSCRIBE & SAVE Less than $3 per week View Profile The Explainer Talking Points The Week Recommends Newsletters From the Magazine The Week Junior Food & Drink Personal Finance All Categories Newsletter sign up In-the-spotlight Ukraine goes all out to woo young people into the army New recruitment drive offers perks as morale and numbers fall Newsletter sign up There are 'high rates of desertion' amid 'falling morale and heavy casualties' in Ukraine (Image credit: Illustration by Julia Wytrazek / Getty Images) By Chas Newkey-Burden, The Week UK published 18 February 2025 Ukraine is targeting 18 to 24-year-olds with a military recruitment campaign to address a manpower crisis on the front lines. The scheme dangles lucrative benefits for would-be recruits but this has already "angered" some long-serving troops, said Politico. 'Social benefits' The campaign was launched with a promotional video featuring a montage of soldiers leaping into action as cash "rolls off a printer", says the Financial Times (FT). To a soundtrack of rock music, a message encourages viewers to: "Change your life in a year". Subscribe to The Week Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives. SUBSCRIBE & SAVE Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox. From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox. Recruits are offered "general military training to Nato standards, specialised instruction and social benefits", including a package of 1mn hryvnia, or about $24,000, paid in instalments. Together with monthly support and additional pay for combat missions, the total income for a year's service could reach $48,000. Other perks include subsidies for rents and mortgages, state-funded higher education, and the right to travel abroad after completion of service. All of these benefits have upset some Ukrainian soldiers who joined the army without any perks on the table. "The state devalues all those who voluntarily joined the army at the beginning of a full-scale war", one longtime serviceman told Politico. 'High desertion' There are "high rates of desertion" amid "falling morale and heavy casualties", said the FT, so Kyiv wants to address the "manpower crisis on the front lines". Volodymyr Zelenskyy said last month that Ukraine's army currently stands at 980,000 troops, compared to Russia, which has about 1.5m active servicemen. Franz-Stefan Gady, a senior fellow at the UK-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, said that a "corrosive effect" of the Trump administration's push for peace talks or a ceasefire is that Ukrainians wonder "if the war is going to be over in a couple of months" why they would "sign up now and potentially get killed". Explore More Russo-Ukrainian War Volodymyr Zelenskyy Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com Contact me with news and offers from other Future brandsReceive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsorsBy submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. Chas Newkey-Burden, The Week UK Social Links Navigation Chas Newkey-Burden has been part of The Week Digital team for more than a decade and a journalist for 25 years, starting out on the irreverent football weekly 90 Minutes, before moving to lifestyle magazines Loaded and Attitude. He was a columnist for The Big Issue and landed a world exclusive with David Beckham that became the weekly magazine’s bestselling issue. He now writes regularly for The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, Metro, FourFourTwo and the i new site. 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