Yurii Butusov: Russia’s and Ukraine’s strategies for 2026
The stream is dedicated to Ukraine’s problems and the challenges of the war. The year 2026 is once again becoming a year of a very serious turning point. And now it depends on each of us, on Ukraine, how the strategy of the war will be shaped and whether Ukraine will be able to deliver this turning point, whether it will be able to capitalize on the advantages it has.
So, in order to speak to the point, I will now briefly outline the main objectives of the Russian Federation’s strategy in the war, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of Ukraine’s strategy. And what may actually allow us to deliver this turning point in the war.
Will we talk about improving the mobilization process?
Well, I will say right away that discussions are currently underway about improving the mobilization process, but so far, there have been no real breakthroughs. Nevertheless, initiatives from the Ministry of Defense are expected. As far as is known, Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov is holding active consultations on the matter. We will see.
So, what is the current situation in the war? At the start of 2026, it became clear that Russia is, after all, running out of cannon fodder. It is difficult for Russia to sustain the winter campaign. This situation is encouraging for us, but I want to point out that the front also stalled in 2025 and in 2024. This was not because Russia had completely run out of strength and no longer wanted to go on the offensive or was unable to do so, but because winter provides the best conditions for our drones to operate effectively in combat and makes it possible to destroy Russian infantry infiltration attempts as efficiently as possible. Every winter, the enemy suffers staggering losses, and they push the front in the warmer months, that is, once foliage appears. It will appear in April, and in the second half of the month, the tree lines will turn green again, conditions for the concealed movement of infantry will improve again, and once more, we will face very difficult combat operations. The enemy will attack, the enemy will search for and find weak spots in our battle formations. That is why whether Ukraine loses the Ukrainian Donbas this year, whether the enemy manages to move right up to Zaporizhzhia, and whether it will be able to seize even more territory in the Kharkiv region, depends on how Ukraine organizes the war and how it responds to these challenges.
So, what is important to note now is that in the summer, beginning in late April, Ukraine will not see the kind of relative stability currently prevailing at the front, the relatively limited enemy gains, and our successful counterattacks. That will begin to change. And in order to stop the enemy, to rout the enemy in the summer, and, let’s say, hold the line until winter comes again and our drones are once more able to kill and hunt down as effectively as possible those Russian worms and all the rubbish that Russia will throw into battle against Ukrainian drones, we must survive all that and see the job through.
When Russia collapses and its system starts falling apart, will we get a chance to reclaim our territories? Will the United States stop us, or will we act in defiance of Trump?
In fact, I do not see any possibility right now that Ukraine will be carrying out anyone’s instructions, regardless of the surname. For us, ending the war on Russia’s terms means the destruction of the state and the destruction of the Ukrainian nation as a whole. Russia is offering no other terms. So for us, continued resistance is the only framework that exists in the real world. That is the starting point. Russia can only be stopped by force, and the turning point that is now taking shape in the war, which I will return to in a moment, is in fact the only way to force Russia into peace.
So, what has changed at the front? First, over several winter months, all Russian Federation reinforcements and all infantry infiltration attempts were simply wiped out, while Ukrainian forces on several sectors of the front carried out successful counterstrikes, through effective coordination between our assault units from different branches and formations of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, the National Guard, and drones. In other words, drone-supported assault operations were successful for Ukraine in winter, and on a number of sections of the front, our forces seized the tactical initiative. And this dealt a serious blow to the enemy. Everywhere our organized units went on the attack, where those attacks were well prepared, they managed to gain ground, inflict heavy losses on the enemy, and do so at a sufficiently acceptable ratio compared with our own losses. That is, the exchange ratio in irreversible losses was 1 to 5, 1 to 6. These are precisely the conditions under which the enemy can be beaten in summer as well. But it will be harder in summer, because enemy infantry, that cannon fodder, is arriving in smaller numbers in Russia, and its quality has declined. Russian infantry, in its main mass, is no longer capable of conducting assaults on its own. Yes, they still have prepared assaults, and they still have motivated personnel capable of advancing after proper preparation. But the overwhelming majority of Russian infantry are no longer fit for the infiltration tactics in which the Russian General Staff takes such pride, because these are simply troops with low combat effectiveness. Russian infantry is no longer performing the function of independently breaking through the front. Instead, they are now used exclusively for reconnaissance in force. In other words, they identify avenues of advance and are meant to help Russian drones locate our positions and strike our units. And in fact, in 2025-2026, it should be noted that just as we use drones for defense and, above all, for counterattacks, the Russians, too, have turned drones into the main means of breaching our front. So the war of 2026 will be a war of drones and counter-drone warfare. In other words, two key factors will determine effectiveness on the battlefield. And there is a third factor, last but not least — in fact, the first. That is the human factor. Which side can train enough personnel, ensure their rotation, and employ them effectively in the gray zone, which will turn into a kill zone stretching 10 kilometers on both sides of the front, where drones hunt people, where troops have to survive and keep logistics running? Which side will be able to put a better battlefield strategy into practice in this drone war? And Russia will keep advancing, and everywhere our troop organization is weak, where infantry organization is weak, where strike coordination is weak, where drone operations are poorly organized, the enemy will manage to advance.
What did the winter show? Winter showed that wherever troop organization is sound, wherever there are enough commanders first and foremost who understand how to employ infantry properly and how to build UAV battle formations correctly, the enemy has no chance. Everywhere, the Russians were stopped and routed. Putin claimed that Kupiansk had been captured. I can now tell you that in Kupiansk, the enemy has only one last strongpoint left. There are also a few more, literally a handful of unfinished Russians hiding in basements. So the situation that had seemed highly favorable for the enemy at the end of the autumn campaign has now changed. Putin was puffing out his chest and saying: "This is what we are about to do to Ukraine now, we will repeat the Kupiansk scenario everywhere, we have entered Dnipropetrovsk region, we are approaching Zaporizhzhia." Now look at the tone of the Russian Z-bloggers — it is sheer panic, despair, and self-abasement. The enemy has suffered several painful defeats at the front, and that is a fact. And the second fact is that, with the help of our Western allies, Ukraine has managed to significantly expand and improve both the quantity and the quality of its strike capabilities, both in the medium range and at long range, effectively delivering strategic strikes against Russian industry and achieving, with substantial forces, an effective advantage in long-range drone strikes. In other words, Ukraine has begun striking the enemy in an organized and high-quality way; the quality of those strikes has improved significantly, as have command and control and follow-up reconnaissance. And this has produced a systematic impact across the entire depth of the enemy’s battle formations and on its economic infrastructure.
It was precisely such systemic strikes, not local ones, not some one-off feat, not a single successful operation, but an entire chain of them: successful counteroffensive operations in northern Kharkiv region, in the Lyman direction, and in Zaporizhzhia; mid-range strikes and deep strikes; kill zones effectively controlled by Ukrainian drones, resulting in simply staggering losses for Russian infantry. All of this combined forced the enemy to squeal and whine all over the internet. But it is very important to understand, we are a highly emotional society, especially in wartime, and I want to stress once again, friends, that we have not won. This is the effect of winter, the effect of our commanders’ growing experience, the effect of creating combat-capable corps, several army corps, the effect of establishing several effective combat-capable assault regiments in the reserve of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the effect of coordinated action, and the effect of improving the quality of our Unmanned Systems Forces and all UAV units within army corps and brigades. In other words, the quality of our technological warfare is improving. This entire system is working. And that is the only reason the enemy was stopped. At the same time, other factors will work against us in the summer. Enemy infantry will be able to hide more effectively. There is a fuel shortage. Russia has chosen as its strategy to inflict heavy blows on our economy in order to raise our costs. And things will become difficult again now. Hunting for infantry in green tree lines is hard work. And for us to understand how to stop this, we need to analyze our strategy and what is being done now.
So, the first thing we are seeing is the systematic steps being taken by Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov with regard to reform in drone warfare. We can see that Fedorov has effectively launched reforms in the Air Force in order to rebuild our air defense system and strengthen the drone component, both in terms of organization and the quality of its employment. To that end, Pavlo Yelizarov, commander of Lasar, has been appointed there. And this is indeed a systemic step that has significantly improved both the organization and the quality of the Air Force’s work in shooting down drones.
Fedorov is drawing in and concentrating a larger share of the Defense Ministry’s resources on drone procurement. And what is important to note here is that we can now compare what Ukraine is doing in the development of UAVs with what Russia is doing. I will speak exclusively in terms of the strategic approach. In fact, Fedorov is carrying out comprehensive changes. Competition has now been launched, and a large number of manufacturers, virtually all well-known producers and even some lesser-known ones, have received funding for UAV production. That means there will no longer be a situation in which there is a single producer, as is the case in Russia. In Russia, Defense Ministry orders are centralized. Ukraine has moved away from that completely. There is analysis, and there is systematic procurement from different manufacturers, from a large number of manufacturers. In other words, conditions have been created for market development so that there is no dependence on supplies from one, two, or three companies, and the military can receive drones from many different producers. And in fact, this competition is a very positive step. Second, a mechanism has been created to monitor combat employment, and it is already functioning. It has now been rolled out across all branches. This is what Fedorov did: he made the Mission Control system mandatory across the board. In other words, any data and any drone sortie are now logged. Previously, this was done only in certain military units. In Khartiia, for example, Mission Control was in place, and every sortie was recorded. Now it is a universal requirement across all Defense Forces. And this really creates an opportunity to work with verified, accurate data that makes it possible to analyze both the technical components and the quality of combat organization in particular brigades and corps. So, in my view, this is a very encouraging reform.
Drone development is progressing systematically across all domains. The number of ground drones must increase, and increase radically, as must the number of aerial drones of all types and naval drones as well. In this way, the focus is not being placed on achieving superiority in just a few specific types of UAVs. In effect, the infrastructure that the Ministry of Defense has now created through its marketplace, and the ability for military units to order not only different drones from different manufacturers but also components for their production, gives Ukraine a fast track to modernization, to constant rapid adaptation, and to staying ahead of the enemy in the technological race. The enemy simply will not be able to replicate these systemic solutions, because Russia’s feudal system of governance is incapable of such flexible decisions. Russia is built entirely on corruption, centralized decision-making, and kickbacks, and any real competition there is simply impossible because of Putin’s regime and the absence of any mechanisms of public oversight. I cannot say that there is no corruption here, but the presence of competition is a safeguard, and there will be room to make a choice. That will become clear over time.
So, this all-out competition, this bet on drones, this bet on superiority in drones across all areas of combat employment. I absolutely agree with it. It is the best strategy for preserving infantry. Because our main problem, if you look at it this way, is this: what does our General Staff need? More assault troops. But in reality, if the technological component is modernized, that number of assault troops will no longer be necessary. Assault troops will become what they are supposed to be. This should not be a job for everyone. It should be a job that requires the highest level of motivation. That is why the second track of Fedorov’s initiatives, as far as I know, is precisely to increase motivation at all levels, first and foremost, material incentives for assault troops. So that the assault troops understand that they are doing special work. I am not sure the nature of that work can be compensated for by money alone. But money is one important incentive. And the availability of serious funding will, I am convinced, also make it possible to attract significantly more foreign volunteers, which Fedorov has also spoken about. And this effort really does have major potential.
I want to say that, unfortunately, for now, the state still cannot systematically organize large-scale recruitment abroad, simply because this issue has not received enough attention. Nevertheless, this year, from what I know and what I can see, Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov and Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko have indeed taken certain steps that could improve this process, truly streamline it, launch it, and make it systemic. The chances are there. I believe in it, and this initiative should be supported to the fullest extent possible. I am convinced that Ukraine can attract a much larger number of foreigners and that this can be effective. In addition, funding for assault forces, assault units, and all such components needs to be increased, not only for separate assault regiments, assault brigades, assault battalions, and assault units being created in different formations. We have assault troops everywhere — border guards, Territorial Defense Forces, and regular infantry, including rifle battalions. So all of this requires additional financial support. If assault units become, first and foremost, drone-and-assault units, where drones carry out the initial attack and where drones conduct the assault first, with people following behind them to finish the assault, that is exactly the technology needed. The same approach should apply to consolidating positions, so that we have drone-supported infantry, infantry that is not simply left on its own with a rifle, but infantry deployed behind a screen of drone positions, both ground and aerial, so that the soldier is not alone, but operates with drone support and is sustained by drones. That really could change the war.
We are now talking about the initiatives that have already been launched. But in order to change the course of the war, to seriously reduce our losses and increase enemy losses, what is still needed is reform of the corps system. And this is a very weak point for Ukraine; it has to be acknowledged; I have spoken about this many times. Unfortunately, over the past year, corps reform has not been implemented. It has been launched, and it is producing very good results in various sectors. It has significantly improved troop command and control. But unfortunately, disorder and chaos in command and control remain the main cause of losses. That is because we still do not have a planned employment of forces across all sectors of the front. And only planned employment of forces, planned manning, planned provision of shells, planned provision of drones, and all other forms of support can work. All of that is possible only with a force structure capable of delivering that kind of planning. If we are in a constant state of chaos, if at the front it is unclear who is responsible for a given sector, if commanders are shuffled around like pawns, and it is generally unclear who is responsible for what, because people are already getting confused over all these battalion and brigade commanders, then nothing functions properly. If everything is centralized and run manually, then, unfortunately, for now, we still do not see sufficient attention from Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksandr Syrskyi to ensuring that the corps can actually operate, begin operating, and at least assemble their full-strength forces within their own sectors. And this is indeed a problem that will hit us during the summer campaign. Because where there is organization, there is no need for heroism, no need for heroic counteroffensives. There is no need to repeat what happened last year in Dobropillia city and Zaporizhzhia region, where the enemy first quietly and steadily pushes through our defenses, then reaches the outskirts of cities or enters Pokrovsk, and only then does the information resonance begin, and only after that does the response begin. Then we launch a heroic counteroffensive, where out of 500 square kilometers captured by the enemy, we heroically retake 200 or 300. Why do we need that heroism when it is already clear to us where the enemy is attacking, how it is attacking, and with what forces? There is no fog of war here. And if there is planning, then there is no need for that number of troops, that number of separate assault forces, that number of assault troops and infantrymen. Then the organization of how forces are employed in defense can be improved much more effectively. These things seem obvious to me. And this, in my view, is the main challenge of the 2026 campaign if everything is to start working. There is nothing especially ingenious about it; again, all of this is laid out in the manuals. One can read, for example, U.S. Army manuals on why corps exist and how they are supposed to operate independently.
ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
If all Russian ports were taken out, could that stop oil production and mean the end of the economy?
We have to be realistic. Taking out all Russian ports altogether, I think, is impossible. I do think we can significantly limit Russia’s export capabilities. I think Russia can be struck not only in its ports, but at sea as well. And that was demonstrated this year. In my view, an absolutely brilliant operation was carried out by unknown but highly professional people who, for example, destroyed a Russian gas carrier in the Mediterranean. The gas carrier itself was worth $330 million, and it was carrying gas worth hundreds of millions more. So that was simply on another level. And Russia has only a handful of such gas carriers. So this was a very heavy and very effective blow to the Russian economy, and it was not even in port. Can the Russians be hit and their economy damaged this way? Absolutely.
What is the forecast for Zaporizhzhia?
If there is competent command there on our side, stopping the enemy and preventing its advance toward the city is absolutely realistic. That has been shown by the actions of our Air Assault Forces, our assault regiments, and the Ground Forces, which, almost immediately after being committed to battle, stopped the enemy and pushed it back on a number of sectors. Unfortunately, we were unable to retake Huliaipole. The enemy captured it and entrenched itself there, but that happened before our actions began. And I want to say that if cities are simply handed over to the enemy quietly like this, then no heroic actions will be able to save them afterward, because the enemy creates such a dense kill zone that attacking inside it, especially in terrain as open as the area near Zaporizhzhia, becomes extremely costly. It means trading away people and sending them under drones, the way the Russians do. We cannot allow ourselves that. Our objective in stopping Russia can rest on only one thing: first and foremost, we must preserve our people. And to preserve lives, our drones must work, and our command and control must function at a level that simply does not expose those people to enemy drones. That is the only option.
What about Kherson?
In this sector of the front, the fighting remains essentially a drone war, and it will continue to be one. At present, there is no likelihood that the enemy will be able to advance to the Dnipro. But again, that is not because the enemy lacks forces there. It is because the units operating in that area, along the Dnipro, are controlling the enemy with sufficient effectiveness and making good use of the advantages of our tactical position. They are skillfully destroying the enemy on the islands and on the opposite bank.
Is there any rough estimate of the cost of eliminating an occupier compared with previous periods?
In fact, there is no such fixed cost. A large number of people are involved in eliminating a Russian soldier. So what needs to be measured is the overall effectiveness of troops in a given sector. We can compare how one crew or another performs. But how much does a killed occupier cost? An occupier is killed as a result of systemic actions. Some infantry forces the enemy to move across open ground, some commanders ensure the enemy is struck by artillery, some commanders ensure effective reconnaissance and thereby create the conditions for the enemy to be effectively killed by drones, by strike drones. In other words, this is a combined effort. I would assess corps-level performance. I have said more than once that corps must become the main hubs for evaluating combat effectiveness in a given sector. In other words, they have a full force package; they have attached units. We calculate over a certain period, roughly a month, what the effectiveness of combat operations is, what the total losses of all units are, not only in depth but overall, how many personnel went AWOL, and how many personnel arrived. We have to analyze all factors. That is why I like the expression Fedorov uses, "the math of war." Just as drones are now being tracked, personnel must be tracked as well. And all the capabilities to do this already exist. As soon as we begin tracking the causes of losses and identifying the commanders under whom losses are highest, they will start asking themselves why this is happening. What are the reasons? Why is it that in one sector, where no fewer enemy troops are being killed, our losses are significantly lower, while in a neighboring sector, losses are being sustained with no result? The Ministry of Defense is already compiling such statistics, and there are some very interesting, very important, and very unpleasant details there that must become the basis for analysis across many of our units and formations. In other words, there is a loss ratio problem that needs to be corrected. I will not go into more detail, because right now we are talking about what needs to be done during the spring and summer campaign.
What can you say about sending our specialists to the Middle East? We understand that this is all a geopolitical move, but judging by Trump’s rhetoric, nothing will satisfy him anyway.
Friends, I think sending our specialists to the Middle East is the right initiative. Ukraine cannot offer the world major resources right now, or large-scale support, or a great power. We are devoting all our resources to our own defense. But Ukraine can offer a chain of solutions. It can offer comprehensive solutions quickly, along with fresh combat experience. So I actually believe it is the right initiative to use this moment to build allied relations with those countries in the Middle East that are currently being terrorized by Iran, and to help them with technology, above all with practical combat employment, with an overall understanding of what drone warfare is. And Ukraine, which has the best experience in countering Iranian Shahed drones, is the one that should do this. This is the right approach to finding allies. Because for 34 years, unfortunately, our search for allies has kept looking the same. We stand there with an outstretched hand and shout to the whole world: save us, because we are a democracy, we are weak, we are suffering, we are under attack, we are being abused, we are being occupied. What state in its right mind would want to build such friendly allied relations with another state that has to be saved, a state that is constantly crying out itself that it is on the verge of destruction? Any partnership must be mutually beneficial. That is why one must extend a hand with something to offer, with assistance, with something that can be reciprocated. Not simply say: save us. So I believe this is precisely the right moment, and these are the right allies. First, the countries of the Middle East have resources, both financial resources and oil resources. So based on the assessments available to us, we already have, in fact, a sufficient number of UAV operators to counter Russian drones. Our problems lie in the organization of their employment and in their sustainment. In the number of radars, as the recent daytime Russian drone raid on western and central Ukraine showed. In the density of radar coverage. In the density of acoustic surveillance coverage. In target cueing, in actual employment, in the combat readiness of various UAV units, and in determining whether they are equipped with the necessary infrastructure and drones. That is where the problems are, first and foremost. But we do have talented, effective, combat-capable people, and that is Ukraine’s competitive advantage in the world. And in my view, this really does need to be put into practice.
Do you not think the media pay far too little attention to abuse by TCRs during so-called "busification"? (A colloquial Ukrainian term describing individuals transported to recruitment facilities by van - ed.) The level of brutality in their actions is such that 5-7 years ago, it would have triggered another Maidan.
The situation with the TCRs is complicated. On the one hand, TCRs are doing genuinely important work. And people who fail to update their records on time or evade mobilization are breaking the law. The TCRs have no other methods.
Our state has turned the TCRs, TCR servicemen, into people-snatchers on the streets. Even so, their work is important. And the state has built no other mobilization system. So we can now say that TCRs are not needed, but then no one will conduct mobilization. Will Ukraine survive that? No, it would destroy Ukraine. But there is a second problem: the TCRs are currently part of the Ground Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Unfortunately, this structure lacks proper oversight, and that really does lead to many abuses, including systemic corruption. And cases in which TCR chiefs at various levels are detained are happening almost daily. Bribes are simply being collected, money is being taken. That is why Minister Fedorov said he intends to solve the mobilization problem. And the TCRs are one of the key elements of that problem. What should be done? I have said this more than once, and I still believe it now. When such a closed structure is created, it does not produce order. It simply leads to opacity and a broader scale of corruption. Under these circumstances, several things need to be done, in my view. First and foremost, the composition of the TCRs should not be determined solely by the command of the Ground Forces. Representatives of the army corps, who have a direct interest in receiving high-quality personnel, should be brought into the TCR structure. The commanders of these corps have a public reputation of their own, unlike the unknown majors, lieutenant colonels, and colonels of the TCCs. And they answer with that reputation. People with reputations at stake need to be involved so that they take responsibility for mobilization in specific territories. The corps already exists. Certain corps should be given a role in overseeing the TCRs in particular regions and be held responsible for how mobilization is conducted there, and for the level of corruption there. When genuinely respected commanders take this on, I guarantee that attention to mobilization issues will be on an entirely different, much higher level. And the likelihood of corruption will fall significantly. There will be someone to appeal to, someone to turn to. That is the first point.
The second point is accountability, meaning legal mechanisms. There absolutely has to be a clear rule that the TCRs operate exclusively with body cameras, just like the police. That there is no room for on-the-spot payoff schemes. That people who, in fact, have full legal grounds are not detained anyway. They are often detained simply to apply pressure, to meet some daily target, to tick a box, rather than to deliver a person to the army. So what we need is accountability, a clear chain of accountability. A chain of accountability that is not broken up. We do not need a separate plan for the TCRs, a separate plan for the training center, a separate plan for the Ground Forces command, and a separate plan for the commander of a military unit. There must be one plan. And there must be a single responsible chain. There is an army corps, there is the Ground Forces command, and together they organize the work in a given area, conduct a public outreach campaign, explain all the rules, engage directly with people, and run an effective information campaign. And when a person arrives at a TCR, someone speaks with them, explains things to them, and they are not thrown around from place to place, but immediately placed in the hands of people who are responsible for them. This is the kind of accountability we are lacking. From the very first minute, a person must understand that if there are grounds for their mobilization, they are being placed in the hands of people for whom they matter, that the person undergoes effective, high-quality training, and is then deployed to the front.
And the third point is people’s motivation. I want to say that it is impossible to solve the mobilization problem in the army simply by catching new people. In my view, the army must first and foremost retain the high-quality people on whom it stands. They are the ones who should be getting bonuses first, so that they do not leave the service out of exhaustion. They are the ones who should be given paid leave on top of that. The more capable, experienced people remain in the army, the fewer people will have to be picked up off the streets and brought in. And the higher the quality of how those newcomers who do join the army are employed will be. Unfortunately, this problem is not being addressed at all. A person serves for one, two, three, four years, gains unique experience, and receives no advantages for it. A million hryvnias will be paid to young people who have served for one year. And that is all. But the people who command them, lead them into battle, and bear the heaviest psychological and physical burden do not receive that. So these issues are interconnected. We need to solve not simply the problem of whom to bring into the army and how. We need to establish a personnel policy across the army as a whole and accountability across the army as a whole. Not in fragments, but from the top down. There must be someone responsible for this. Then there will be logic to it. Unfortunately, we do not have that logic. This, too, is one of the challenges and risks of 2026.
For example, in the unit I am recruiting and building, the majority of the servicemen are those who went AWOL. From other branches, from other units. For whatever reasons of their own, they left their units. They were detained by the police. They ended up in the Military Law Enforcement Service. And the Military Law Enforcement Service simply gave them, and me, an opportunity to talk, and they chose this path. And I want to say that every time you speak with them, yes, people are different. There are those who consciously decided simply to run. There are discipline violators. And unfortunately, there are people who abuse drugs, so they did not run for nothing. They ran because they really had committed, or wanted to commit, an offense. But most of the people in my unit are absolutely conscientious, capable people who could have been lost to the army altogether. Criminal cases were opened against them, they were placed on wanted lists. Why? No one is bothered by that. Why did it happen? They are effective fighters, they can fight effectively, they are brave, competent, well-trained, and experienced. But it turns out that instead of taking care of them and preventing the loss of such unique specialists, everyone is simply thinking about how to catch someone, shove them into a van, or bring in young people by offering them one million hryvnias. Inexperienced young people. So the problem is not the TCR. We might not need that many people at all if proper attention were paid to those who are already combat-capable.
On mobilization. What does the absence of a vertical mobilization model lead to? The TCR reports one target, but only 50% of that target actually make it to the training center. Why are we simulating this? All these detentions, all these street roundups, when later 50% of those people produce documents showing they have exemptions from mobilization, or genuine medical conditions, or some other objective reason not to be conscripted. Or they buy their way out with money. And those who take that money are constantly being detained in turn by the Security Service of Ukraine and the State Bureau of Investigation. This is absurd. We keep playing this game and have, in fact, turned many TCC employees into millionaires during the war. And not only the TCRs, military medical commissions, the MSEC, various doctors. What is the point of this? Why keep this corrupt system in place for so many years? It is effectively a trade in people. This has to end. It is irresponsibility. And this irresponsibility is doing us serious harm. We are spending money on a structure that operates at 50% efficiency. Then, of that 50% who make it to training units, a certain number are filtered out there as well. In short, by the time they reach the troops, only about 45% actually do. And then what? Then some of those people are filtered out too. This system of irresponsibility for a person’s fate has to end. From the very beginning, from the moment someone is approached and their documents are checked, if that person is subject to mobilization, there must be responsibility for what happens to them. A specific military unit, a specific commander, or a specific branch of service, a specific commander. Not this situation where nobody knows who is responsible. Nobody knows who will hand you over and bus you to a training unit. That is exactly what must stop.
Do you have any information about improvements to the transfer mechanism through Army+ in the near future?
No. There have been no changes. There was so much talk about improvements supposedly coming soon. As usual, it turned out to be nothing but empty talk. As soon as transfers through Army+ began, it immediately became clear that transfers do work, but only with the consent of the unit commander. And in 99.9% of cases, that consent is, of course, not given. So Army+ is a nice-looking app, lots of words, lots of presentations, zero effect. Why create this? Why waste people’s time, take it away from them, and create false hopes? No, I do not see any logic in it. I believe there should be no Army+, no fancy wording at all, just a clear rule written into the system: if a person has served for a year in a frontline infantry position, they should have the right to transfer to another unit within a month. That is how it works for foreigners in our system. Foreigners serve under six-month contracts. Once the contract ends, it expires, and the foreigner can turn around, go to another unit, and sign a new contract. More than that, foreigners are not subject to criminal liability for leaving a unit. In other words, we have created better conditions for foreigners than for Ukrainians. A paradox. All right, I actually agree that a six-month contract is too short and ineffective. But a year is a normal term. So this is how I see it: after one year, if a person is serving in a combat infantry position, they should have the right to transfer to another unit. It does not matter whether it is a mortar crew, a machine gun team, an automatic grenade launcher crew, a driver, a UAV operator — everyone working in the kill zone. All those people serving in combat positions must have the right to change military units. They should also be given leave, and not just two weeks. In my view, after a year of service, a person should get additional paid leave, an extra week or 10 days. In other words, the psychological and physical burden on the individual has to be eased. In war, people become severely exhausted and develop a wide range of health problems. They need to be given time to recover, because a person is not made of iron; no one can keep fighting, fighting, fighting for four years straight. Even staff work is hard, if a person is doing that staff job conscientiously, of course. Sitting in a basement, constantly in meetings, constantly under stress, receiving information, passing it on, planning, there is nothing healthy about that either. Sitting in damp basements, bunkers, and dugouts. So the way people are treated is one of our problems. First, there are never enough people through mobilization; second, they run; and third, very many people are afraid to go and serve. It has to be understood that no country in the world has seen exclusively voluntary mobilization during world wars. Mandatory mobilization was introduced in Great Britain during the World Wars, and in the United States as well. And it was coercive. It was not only volunteers going off to fight. Systems of compulsion operate all over the world, not just here. So this logic has to be understood.
Such terms of service, I’ve already been serving for eight years, and I’m fed up with it all. I want, like Yuzik, to have a family and go on holiday in Spain.
Well, of course. Criminals who lie during wartime and, instead of going on official duty trips, spend their time vacationing in Spain, if such criminals are public officials, if they are not punished, if such a liar then goes on walking into parliament and collecting a salary, then of course that causes demoralization and disillusionment.
When will Khartiia and the Third Corps present a personnel training plan at the state level?
I do not know. I believe that a personnel training plan is, first and foremost, the business of the army corps, and I am glad that this initiative has taken place. Whether the state will be interested in serious training for people, I do not know. We will see.
I am afraid that instead of learning, asking questions, and holding discussions, they will once again say that this is politics, that we do not need to learn, that nothing needs to be changed, that everything is fine as it is. Unfortunately, that is our reality. No one wants to change anything, because the people in charge are always satisfied with what they already have.
Have the Russian Armed Forces managed to adapt their communications and command after losing Starlink?
Not fully. However, the adversary is systematically and effectively developing fiber-optic links and Wi-Fi bridges, largely addressing their issues. And I want to say that in this respect, we have something to learn from the enemy, because we also need to scale up the use of fiber-optic line-laying technologies in frontline conditions.
Friends, I am grateful to you for being with me, very grateful that there is an opportunity to get this kind of response to the streams, and I thank you for all your questions. I am grateful to all the sponsors of the Butusov Plus channel. Thanks to you, we have the opportunity to keep all this work going at all. For my part, I will soon write about what has been done, a platoon has been fully staffed, and even significantly more than that. So we continue our work at the front, and I invite everyone to join my unit.
Our tasks are difficult. There is nothing globally cosmic about them, but we are a good team, we are growing, and we are working for results, and there is honesty and openness in our relations. So I invite everyone who is looking for a strong combat team to join us. Glory to Ukraine!
