Approximately 7% of all mobilized people have a legal right to a deferment, which was not taken into account during mobilization activities. The Military Ombudsman of Ukraine Olga Reshetilova stated this in an interview with Suspilny, published on June 6.
This statement was made in the context of the journalist’s question about people who were mobilized during the war, but who are actually unable to serve. In confirmation, she cited an interview with the head of the analytical department of the Center for Initiatives “Turn Around Alive,” Anton Muraveynik, and the head of the “Turn Around Alive” Foundation, Taras Chmut, who said that such people who are actually unfit for service “may have already been mobilized in the thousands.”
“According to our calculations, such military personnel are approximately 7% among all mobilized. That is, 7% of those mobilized have a legal right to a deferment, it’s just that for some reason it was not taken into account during mobilization activities. This could be, for example, poor quality of the military military check, failure to take into account the documents that the serviceman had. Or the presence of three or more children, registration of guardianship over one of their close relatives. These could also be people who are the closest relatives. relatives of dead, missing or captured military personnel. These are the three main reasons,” the Ombudsman answered.
Reshetilova noted that then the problems of these 7% of recruits are actually shifted to the state and commanders. If conscripts have health problems, they are sent for treatment at government expense. Even one such case creates significant paperwork. In addition, relatives often send complaints to the Ministry of Defense or the Ombudsman, which further overloads the electronic document management system (EDMS) in the defense forces. In addition, the state spends funds on each military personnel, in particular on paying salaries, providing uniforms, food, protective equipment, treatment, training, etc. The Ombudsman noted that errors during mobilization entail significant costs, while the state does not receive combat-ready reinforcements. She indicated that this is an “extremely difficult task” that must be solved by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense.
When asked for clarification, Reshetilova did not give figures, but noted that the office of the military ombudsman announced them when reporting on 100 days of its work.
“This is a huge amount of resources that we are wasting simply because of poor mobilization. And the state must see these funds and understand that we are simply throwing them into space. We are also creating a social problem, social tension and in no way solving the issue of replenishing the troops at the expense of these people. […] I think people involved in policy development understand how much this costs. These are very large numbers,” she concluded.
