Internal forces rather than Russia are to blame for the ineffectiveness of the draft campaign, Kirill Budanov has said

FILE PHOTO: The head of Ukraine’s military intelligence service (HUR), Kirill Budanov, speaking during a security forum in Kiev. © Getty Images / Maxym Marusenko

Ukraine has failed in its mobilization drive during the conflict with Russia through its own mistakes, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence service (HUR), Kirill Budanov, has said.

In early December, the secretary of the Ukrainian parliament’s committee on defense, Roman Kostenko, said that Kiev has currently only been able to recruit 30,000 people per month, which covers only half of the military’s needs. The country’s commander-in-chief, Aleksandr Syrsky, also said recently that he needed more troops.

Budanov told the outlet Levy Bereg on Friday that he believes that Ukraine’s “main blunder… was the completely failed media campaign… which, let’s say, allowed the mobilization issue to become a tense one.” 

“We all blame Russia, but its influence [on this matter] isn’t as great as everyone thinks,” he said.

 

Read more

 Putin offers Zelensky a deal on elections

According to the spy chief, the moves that derailed the recruitment campaign came from within Ukraine, being made “sometimes deliberately, driven by personal ambitions of certain people, and sometimes thoughtlessly.” 

“We destroyed our own mobilization. Those who say otherwise are wrong. We destroyed it ourselves,” Budanov insisted.

Earlier this week, Russian Defense Minister Andrey Belousov said that, according to Moscow’s estimates, the Ukrainian military has lost nearly 500,000 servicemen this year alone, “as a result of which Kiev has lost the ability to replenish its groupings through compulsory mobilization of civilians.” 

Ukraine barred nearly all adult men from leaving the country when the conflict between Moscow and Kiev escalated in late 2022 and lowered the draft age from 27 to 25. Nearly 100,000 young men have reportedly fled the country since August when the Ukrainian government issued a decree allowing men aged 18 to 22 to cross the border.

READ MORE: Russia hands over remains of more than 1,000 soldiers to Ukraine – Kremlin

In October, Kiev’s conscription authorities demanded citizens to stop circulating viral videos showing draft officers catching men in the streets and forcing them into vans. Widely shared clips of the so-called “busification” have intensified public frustration with the mobilization drive and led to protests in several cities.