KYIV—In the course of the last month, Ukraine’s government pushed two significant measures related to one of its most glaring weaknesses: its strained armed forces. Yet the moves landed awkwardly in Ukraine and have some observers wondering whether President Volodymyr Zelensky, and his circle of advisors, is adequately in touch with reality outside the corridors of power in Kyiv.
“At the very least, they have to put more work into communicating their intentions,” said Anton Grushetsky, the executive director of the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology. “Some of the recent moves look poorly thought through.”
“Zelensky’s circle exists in a vacuum,” said Dmytro K., a Kyiv-based graduate student and defense analyst, who asked that his surname be withheld. “They live in a bubble. Some advisors are very good, but they’re obviously not getting a consistent flow of relevant information.”
On Sept. 5 and 6, hundreds of people converged on Kyiv’s Independence Square, the venue of Ukraine’s democratic uprisings, livid about a draft law that proposed draconian sentences for insubordination in the military, namely harsher criminal liability for absence without leave and desertion. The new measure had the support of the defense ministry and Zelensky’s party, Servant of the People.
The purpose of the provision, which a parliamentary committee withdrew from the bill after the protests, was to stop recruits from abandoning their posts, a scourge that has plagued Ukraine’s undermanned armed forces. The measure stipulated mandatory five-to-10-year prison sentences for broadly defined insubordination, including military personnel’s switching of brigades—from one to another—until now a common, accepted practice in Ukraine’s untraditional armed forces. The penalty for desertion was set at 12 years, with no amnesty for those who return voluntarily. Since the war’s onset, military personnel who deserted could return to service without facing criminal liability.
In Kyiv, the protesters wielded placards expressing their opposition to the crackdown: “Army service is not slavery,” “Protect those who protect you!” and “Soldiers to prison while corrupt officials go free? Don’t make that mistake.” One protester, who asked that his name not be used, said he knew that discipline in the armed forces was an issue but that long sentences without independent legal review went too far and was not in the spirit of Ukraine’s citizen army. On the contrary, this is the way Russia treats military personnel.
“We went out on the street because our soldiers are on the front and can’t speak up for themselves,” said Viktoriia Gazunova of the Hospitallers, a voluntary organization of paramedics.
And the defense ministry received the message, replying “Discipline in the army must be based not on punishment but on fairness. The ministry consistently supports ensuring that the service members who are defending our country today can also defend their rights,” the ministry added.
The second measure, which came straight from Zelensky’s office, strikes an even rawer nerve and has broad implications for the war effort. The announcement in late August that men under the age of 22 could now travel abroad was greeted mostly with uneasiness, not the relief that the government had hoped for. Until now, martial law had dictated that Ukraine’s borders be closed to men between the ages of 18 and 60, even though military conscription begins at 25.
Most Ukrainians accepted these conditions, if grudgingly. “Sure, I think in a democratic country like Ukraine people should be free to travel as they wish,” said Alina Huseinaliieva, a Kyiv-based musician. “But these aren’t normal circumstances, and we have to man the front.” More supporters of Ukraine than just U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham feel that Ukraine’s conscription laws are already far too lenient—and that, for example, compulsory military service should begin at 18. (In comparison, during the Vietnam War, only American men ages 18 to 26 were subject to the draft.)
The fear of many Ukrainians is that young men between 18 and 22 will now flee in large numbers, leaving the armed forces come 2027 with too few new recruits – and Ukraine, a country with severe demographic deficiencies, with too few people when the war ends. One 25-year-old woman told me that in her brother’s cohort of friends ages 18 to 22, most of them were planning to leave the country. She said the new law was wrongheaded and would hurt the war effort. Dmytro K. estimates that 15 percent of this age segment will leave and that few currently abroad will return to enlist.
The government’s rationale for the move was to curry favor with younger Ukrainians. Moreover, its purpose also aimed to stop the outflow of 17-year-olds whose parents had been sending them abroad in order not to be trapped in Ukraine when they turned 18. University staff across the country say the ranks of new male students are conspicuously thin.
“If we want to keep boys in Ukraine, we really need them to finish school here first and for their parents not to take them away,” Zelensky said last month. “It is at this age, in their senior [late high school] years, that they lose their connection with Ukraine.” The idea, Grushetsky said, is that the new conditions will enable them to stay in Ukraine and begin their life there, hopefully forming bonds that will keep them there. It also gives young men abroad the opportunity to study abroad and then return.
The misbegotten military reforms come on top of other government blunders that throw a damning light on the president’s closest circle of advisors. The world witnessed one stunning lapse in judgment when Zelensky walked into the White House on Feb. 28 without any notion that President Donald Trump would summarily dress him down and Vice President J.D. Vance scold him like a child. (The Trump team was obviously planning to jump him anyway, but he still should have been much better prepared for it.)
And then another howler followed on its heels: On July 22, Servant of the People hurriedly pushed through an amendment that gave the president’s handpicked prosecutor-general the power to transfer cases away from the independent National Anti-Corruption Bureau and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office and to reassign prosecutors. Not only is Ukraine extremely vulnerable on the issue of corruption—the country’s notorious graft has sullied its reputation and stymied the war effort—but this heavy-handed incursion shook the bedrock of democratic Ukraine, as well as Zelensky’s popular support.
The country’s nongovernmental sector has flourished since Russia’s full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022, and is firmly committed to Ukraine adhering to European standards. This gratuitous slap put Ukraine’s very democratic legitimacy at stake and would have undermined the morale that grassroots engagement had played no small role in maintaining over three and a half years. Several days of demonstrations – called the Cardboard Revolution for its many homemade signs and placards – shook the country as ordinary citizens made explicit that the Ukraine they were fighting—and dying—for was one ruled by law and not authoritarian caprice. Zelensky, who enjoys generous backing from civil society, sensibly reversed the legislation and in doing so rescued his political career.
This litany of missteps speaks badly about Zelensky’s coterie and political party. Indeed, surveys show that popular distrust of the parties and parliament is very high—though this is nothing new. Ukrainians have long looked skeptically at these institutions. But the president himself has defied the trend, maintaining two-thirds of Ukrainians’ support, a figure significantly higher than his predecessor’s ratings. Yet, he has been in office now for nearly six years, with elections suspended under martial law. The egregious anti-corruption miscue illustrated that his domestic advisors are sorely out of touch with Ukrainian society.
The obvious conclusion is that Zelensky needs new counsel. Ukraine’s world of think tanks, consultants, foundations, and civic organizations burnish a wealth of knowledge and experience, much of which they have accrued over the past six years. Zelensky should draw on this rich cache to renew his advisors and reconnect to the Ukrainian public while it still believes in him.