Butusov on world’s first underground offensive and review of mobilisation exemptions: Should we expect real change?
Yurii Butusov, commander of a UAV company in the 23rd Assault Regiment of the National Guard’s 2nd Khartiia Corps, discusses the world’s first underground offensive—Operation Veles near Kupiansk, Drapatyi’s order to restrict the appointment of corrupt officials to military posts, and the latest campaign to review mobilisation exemptions.
Host Vlasta Lazur: Yurii Butusov, commander of a UAV company in the 23rd Assault Regiment of the National Guard’s 2nd Khartiia Corps. Yurii, welcome.
Good afternoon. Glory to Ukraine.
Glory to the heroes. Yurii, since you represent Khartiia and serve in Khartiia, I have to ask you about Operation Veles. It seems to me that relatively little has been said about it publicly, but as I understand it, this was the first, or perhaps not the first - correct me if I’m wrong - underground offensive, carried out by Khartiia troops near Kupiansk, which ultimately secured control of the gas pipeline near the Oskil River. Could you tell us more about this operation?
Operation Veles near Kupiansk
Yes, I can share some details. This was indeed the world’s first underground offensive, carried out by Ukraine’s Defence Forces near Kupiansk. The operation took a very long time. The main reason it was necessary was that the enemy had started using gas pipelines before we did, as their main routes for entering our positions and effectively infiltrating through our battle lines.
The same happened near Kupiansk. Khartiia moved into the area in late September 2025. By then, the enemy had already been using the gas pipeline for a long time. Several gas pipelines run through Kupiansk itself and the surrounding area.
Using this pipe, the enemy crossed the Oskil River unimpeded, massed in wooded areas, and then carried out infiltration operations, entering Kupiansk and its outskirts. So, from the moment Khartiia arrived, it became necessary to dislodge the enemy from well-prepared underground positions. The Russians were not simply crawling through the pipe. They have turned many kilometres of it into an underground fortification system, continually creating access openings both below and above ground.
They build dugouts, assembly areas and supply depots at these openings. In many places, the pipe itself is blocked by barricades and firing positions. Russian units conduct combat operations inside the pipe; we are talking about more than one or two soldiers, or even a few dozen. The pipe is the area of operations of an entire Russian brigade, the 27th Motor Rifle Brigade. The gas pipe is its main route for infiltration and assault operations. Alongside the 27th Brigade, attached assault detachments from the 68th Division, that division’s 30th Engineer-Sapper Regiment, and special forces units also attached to the division for assaults on Kupiansk operate inside the pipe. So the enemy had amassed substantial forces there and heavily fortified the pipe. And to eliminate the enemy, we did indeed have to conduct an underground offensive, primarily an engineering operation. The main work in this underground offensive was done by troops from the National Guard’s 13th Khartiia Brigade. They carried out the bulk of the engineering work, making it possible for us to do more than just dislodge the enemy from several positions. In some sections, we managed to encircle and eliminate enemy forces. Manoeuvres were carried out both underground and above ground.
So the infantry was effectively fighting in two dimensions, both on the surface and underground.
This is a genuinely new factor in warfare: our assault units advanced 15 kilometres underground. It is unique.
Yes. Yes. It was reported that the advance covered 15 kilometres and that, after this, Russian forces could no longer infiltrate the right bank of the Oskil River or Kupiansk itself.
Drapatyi’s order on corrupt officials
I would like to hear your views on several news reports. There was one report—I have not yet seen any official confirmation, but I have not seen any denials either. Nashi Hroshi, citing sources in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, reported that Commander-in-Chief Mykhailo Drapatyi had ordered restrictions on appointments to certain military posts; I am not entirely sure which ones - for people implicated in corruption cases or even already convicted by a court. Yurii, do you know anything about this, or have you seen how this order is being applied in practice?
I have also heard about this order. I have not yet seen it applied in practice, but there is certainly a lot of work to be done in the Defence Forces to implement it.
Could you explain whether this is broadly a positive step, or whether there are different ways of looking at it? Suppose we are talking about a capable person, a service member who may have a shady past involving corruption, and now they cannot be appointed to various posts. Or does that simply not happen?
Well, we have had cases where people under formal investigation were still appointed to command positions. I believe that being under investigation specifically for corruption offences matters. There are different types of offences, and in fact, I believe some should rule a person out for appointment even if they have not stolen anything, for example, if they commit physical violence. Yes, every situation in the military needs to be examined. There are a great many people in the military, a million. And each person’s situation needs to be considered individually. I do not think any special orders are necessarily needed for this. I believe we need to end the practice whereby someone commits an offence, it is investigated, investigators reach an assessment, and an internal inquiry is immediately conducted into the matter, yet the person remains in post despite serious questions about their conduct. For example, someone personally collected money from soldiers and spent it on personal needs. How can that person possibly continue to hold command positions? In my view, they simply cannot. I think it is good that such an order has been issued, but in fact, this could have been done without an order, through decisions by the Armed Forces’ personnel authorities.
There are no restrictions preventing this. I hope the order was simply issued to put everyone on notice and draw the attention of commanders at every level to this problem. And I am very much looking forward to seeing how it is implemented.
It will indeed be very interesting to see how it is implemented. According to what Nashi Hroshi has reported, for now it concerns a relatively small number of officials, perhaps around fifty, who mainly held various senior positions in the General Staff, commanded different branches and services of the armed forces, or headed military law enforcement bodies within the Armed Forces of Ukraine. We will see. But this really does set a precedent.
I cannot remember anything like it. And there are indeed many documented cases where someone is caught committing an offence, the case goes to trial, and while the trial is ongoing, they are mobilised. I do not know what positions they then receive, but for many, the military has indeed become a lifeline allowing them to escape punishment. Now, another topic.
Reviewing the mobilisation exemption system
Yurii, what do you think of the government’s idea of reviewing the mobilisation exemption system, including lowering the cap on exempt employees at, for example, energy companies, defence industry enterprises, municipal utilities and so on? On the one hand, there are said to be widespread abuses. On the other hand, representatives of the defence industry have made very clear statements that losing even some of their staff would have a very serious impact on the front line itself.
I have always taken a dim view of these campaigns. This is a Soviet-era mindset: instead of doing professional work, we periodically launch high-profile, populist political campaigns that are supposed to signal that a problem has been solved, while it remains unresolved.
As far as I can remember, this is already the fifth or sixth campaign to review the conditions for mobilisation exemptions. We have been through this many times. What happens here? Every year, and sometimes every six months, another campaign begins: "Let’s review the criteria for mobilisation exemptions."
The question is: why do this? The rules for mobilisation exemptions should have been settled long ago. There should be clearly defined criteria, and the rules should not be revised so often, especially with this kind of political approach. It is completely absurd. What does all this boil down to?
We have no workforce planning. And because there is no workforce planning, the Cabinet of Ministers changes, or a minister changes, and they start doing things their own way. The new broom launches another campaign to review absolutely everything, starting with the lists of people granted mobilisation exemptions. What does that produce? Loud slogans instead of rules that should simply be adopted quietly and calmly, without anyone even knowing about it. Why raise these issues publicly? Mobilisation exemptions and mobilisation itself are particularly sensitive matters. They require a very careful, considered and pragmatic approach.
Instead, we get a loud slogan: "Here we go! We’re reviewing everyone!" It leads nowhere. Well-connected companies that can get whatever they want and never have anyone mobilised will continue to get their way. Those that have had employees mobilised and their exemption quotas cut will have those quotas cut again and more employees taken. Meanwhile, it is another harvest for the people in government, the security and intelligence services, and law enforcement agencies who sit on these commissions. Business owners and company directors queue up to see them. Once a year, you have to make this offering to the gods in the Cabinet of Ministers. And not just in the Cabinet of Ministers, but in the security and intelligence services and law enforcement too, because they set up yet more commissions and coordination centres, sit on them, and watch the queues form of people who need to get things "sorted out."
Don’t you believe they are taking this seriously this time and genuinely intend to make the system fair? That is what they are promising, at least.
All I see is that where systematic work is needed, there are slogans, endless campaigns, and frantic last-minute rushes to meet targets; these are Soviet terms. That was precisely the Soviet approach to solving problems.
I immediately understand that this is not about properly organising the allocation of people, but about shaking them down for money again. To put it exactly as the decision-makers do behind closed doors: once again, create preferential conditions for their own people, fleece the outsiders and get something out of it for themselves. Serious matters such as planning mobilisation resources cannot be handled through a populist campaign like this. Every company in the defence sector and even outside it, every infrastructure company is an individual case.
Over the years of war, the state should long since have established how many people it needs to keep infrastructure, essential services and the economy running, or to fulfil defence orders. In fact, all of this could still be done quickly now. It could be done in a month or two. But why turn it into a political campaign with slogans?
Why? Who needs this? Who is the intended audience? Why do people come out and say: "Hooray, we’re going to review the criteria for mobilisation exemptions"? Why announce this openly on air? Assessing our defence potential is strictly confidential work, conducted out of the public eye. Only on the basis of that assessment can you objectively determine whose mobilisation exemptions should be revoked and whose should not. Instead of doing this work quietly, completing it and making precise adjustments, holding meetings and discussing each sector at every level: here, we retain these people because they are fulfilling this order; there, they are fulfilling that order.
Instead of doing this work, which should be confidential, we get: "Hooray, we’re reviewing everything. Come to us. Hurry up, bring us your arguments. We now set the rules for you, and we’re going to fleece you. We’re the new people: a new commission, a new coordination centre."
Now you can come to us if you don’t want us to revoke all your employees’ mobilisation exemptions and send them into the army. That is the sole purpose of this.
A coordination centre for administering mobilisation exemptions, which will clarify or determine which enterprises qualify as critical. But the government promises that it will have a purely advisory role and nobody will be fleecing anyone. Well, we’ll see.
Of course nobody will. Whatever are you suggesting? Where would corruption in Ukraine come from? There isn’t any, of course. All these solemn announcements are being made precisely to prevent corruption.
But you know, Yurii, the problem is that they did try to do it confidentially, but I think they went too far. It was so confidential that they did not involve either MPs from the relevant parliamentary defence committee or, as I understand it, representatives of the defence industry, the military-industrial complex, in the discussions. And when the first proposals emerged, you remember the uproar, because everyone said: "Why didn’t you invite us? Why did you decide on your own?"
My point is this: do it confidentially, and you’ll get hammered for it. Do it publicly, and you’ll get hammered too.
Honestly, I don’t see any logic in that. Look, what does confidentiality have to do with it? There are certain criteria. We do many things confidentially, and nobody talks about them. I really don’t see any—well, what you have just said follows an entirely different logic. Mobilisation exemptions are a planning tool.
Take the money the state spends on one company or another, for example. The state does not launch a public campaign saying: "We’ll give this one this much and that one that much." You don’t see those figures: who received what money, or how much went to which enterprise.
So why should anyone be told what the personnel quotas are for each company? This needs to be handled by sector. Each sector should understand the mobilisation exemption criteria that apply specifically to it, rather than to individual enterprises. Instead, we are setting up yet another coordination centre, a door everyone has to rush to individually.
Well, I think it is quite obvious that when thousands of enterprises are told to rush to a new coordination centre, no centre will have time to develop criteria for assessing those thousands of people. This needs to be handled by sector. The government should be responsible for it. Each sector has its own minister.
That minister should present their vision and rationale for their sector and the enterprises under their authority. The Cabinet should first consider this and then submit it to the Staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. This is how we use our human resources. That is why it needs to be planned.
And this cannot be a public matter. In fact, what you are describing is not transparent at all. All these mobilisation exemption criteria are still decided behind closed doors. There are enterprises with 10,000 employees fulfilling an order, and none of their staff are mobilised. Then there is, for example, an enterprise in our defence industry employing a thousand people, with a larger volume of orders than the one employing 10,000, yet its mobilisation exemptions are cut. You do not read about this online. The commission or coordination centre does not report on such cases or on its review of each enterprise’s situation.
Transparency is needed not simply when you announce that you will be managing or coordinating something, but when you publicly report on progress, results achieved and oversight measures. Here, there is none of that. There is a public announcement, and then: "Come to us." But there is no transparency in the work itself. You will not see how many people have mobilisation exemptions or where they work. Nor can you check online or in the news who was granted exemptions by previous government coordination commissions and centres, why or how. It was all completely opaque, and it will be the same now.
This is not quite the same topic, but to my mind it should be a logical next step.
Demobilisation of veterans and planning
I mean discharging service members who have been in the military for a long time. Let’s take, say, those who have served since 2014–2015, because this is something the president promised. Do you expect or can we perhaps reasonably assume that these changes to the mobilisation exemption system will logically be followed by the release of some people from military service? And are there perhaps people in Khartiia who have served for a long time and are waiting for such a decision?
I do not think campaigns and frantic last-minute rushes on this scale can bring about any changes. Changing recruitment and service arrangements requires planning, rather than some one-off initiative announced by someone. We need an inventory of the available human resources, both in the military and in the civilian sector. Then we need to determine which civilians can be recruited into the military, in what order and at what age; who is healthy, who is fit for service, who works at critical infrastructure facilities or in the defence industry, and who does not. We need to calculate that pool and then give the military a mobilisation plan based not simply on headcounts, but on specific citizens who must, in turn, report to military recruitment centres.
But we have none of this. Look at how mobilisation works. If things were as I have described, if mobilisation were planned, there would be no recruitment vans on the streets at all. As I see it, they simply would not exist.
They want to solve that problem too, but have not managed to. Yurii, thank you. Yurii Butusov, commander of a UAV company in the 23rd Assault Regiment of the National Guard’s 2nd Khartiia Corps, was speaking on Radio NV.
Radio NV.
