Ukraine hopes to coax back thousands of AWOL troops with their choice of commander and deployment area

Ukraine is giving its missing troops a prize for rejoining the war: The chance to take their caller area of deployment, commander, and job.

Kyiv's defense ministry said connected Friday that it would let troops who are absent without leave, or AWOL, to take from complete 70 units crossed its 3 crushed branches if they redeploy.

The announcement is an description of a voluntary return program, launched successful June, that intends to coax tens of thousands of AWOL troops backmost wrong 100 days. That's a privilege for Ukraine, which has struggled to support its ranks filled for years, reinforcing a vicious rhythm wherever its remaining, outnumbered troops turn progressively fatigued.

The programme "allows you to take a caller subject portion from a specified list, bespeak your desired guidance of work and erstwhile experience, person support from the interaction center, and get instantly astatine the caller unit," the ministry said successful its Friday announcement.

Troops person until September 20 to use for their return, it added.

Social media has made it communal for Ukrainian commanders and units to person their ain reputations for the endurance complaint and use of their troops. That's made immoderate units acold much celebrated than others.

Still, the defense ministry appeared to adhd a caveat — there's nary guarantee a worker will get their preferred portion aliases role.

"At the aforesaid time, the number of positions successful individual areas is limited, truthful those who person already decided connected a unit, area of ​​service, and desired position should not hold submitting a report," its connection said.

But the ministry has many times sought this twelvemonth to guarantee soldiers that its caller systems are designed pinch communal sense, not bureaucracy, successful mind, preventing troops from falling done the cracks.

"Drivers, UAV operators, clerks, shooters — the service needs everyone," said Mstislav Banik, lawman curate for defense.

Led until precocious by the maverick Mykhailo Fedorov, the ministry has tried to radically modernize its military's building and clasp troops.

Previously, an AWOL worker had to study to the subject rule enforcement work to officially registry their absence, which is punishable by up to 10 years successful prison. They would person past been sent to a reserve battalion, wherever they could beryllium redeployed to their caller unit.

But the caller programme skips each of that, the ministry said, alternatively sending troops straight to their preferred unit. Once there, they'll beryllium blocked from involuntary transportation to different portion for six months.

Instead of reporting to the subject police, the AWOL troops tin use to rejoin the warfare via a website aliases Ukraine's subject mobile app, Army+, officials added.

Fedorov said successful January that Ukraine had logged over 200,000 AWOL cases since the warfare began. That fig may, however, beryllium importantly inflated by an administrative loophole that allowed disgruntled troops to dodge the reddish portion of transferring units by going AWOL.

Ukraine besides precocious raised unit net ceilings dramatically, pinch battle soldiers capable to earn complete six figures a twelvemonth depending connected really often they fought.