Blocking detachments and new fortifications
Suicide missions at gunpoint, torture. EU calls for youth repatriation. Desertions and salaries.
What awaits the frontlines in 2026?
Euro-atlanticist militarist circles have a relatively clear strategy. Ukraine must keep fighting. They know it won’t reverse Russian advances, that’s not the point. As long as the Ukrainian army gives the Russians a hard time, Zelensky can continue presenting Trump with demands he knows Russia won’t accept.
And as Trump’s peace plan runs into a wall of Russian refusal, the militarists can tell Trump that Putin is sabotaging his wise diplomacy. Ultimately, they hope, this will push the White House to increase its military support for Ukraine. They can also count on the continued support of the CIA, whose aid to Ukrainian drone attacks on Russia has only increased over the past year.
All of this depends on the continued cohesion of the Ukrainian army.
Today we’ll examine the Ukrainian army’s key problem — lack of personnel — and its claimed solution — a new system of defensive fortifications. These new fortifications purport to need fewer humans than ever, but is this really true? We’ll assess just how effective the new type of fortifications built in 2025 have been, and evaluate its main weaknesses. As it turns out, Ukraine’s ‘New Donbass Line’, while certainly better than what came before, is neither invincible nor omnipresent. Corruption doesn’t help either.
Then, we’ll see how these broader dynamics have been playing out at the frontlines over the past week, focusing in particular on the problematic southern front.
Besides incomplete fortifications and absent personnel, the past few days have seen a new scandal in the the south — the infamous 225th assault regiment has kidnapped at gunpoint undermotivated soldiers from the AWOL-wracked 108th territorial brigade. Enraged relatives claim that the soldiers’ telephones have been stolen, with the 225th sending them on bloody suicide missions.
The story of these blocking detachments also features this telling comment on Ukraine’s largest military forum:
Everyone’s seen those Russian videos where they strip their own refusers naked, tie them to trees, and beat them—well, here it’s exactly the same, 1-for-1, only not with those refusing to fight but with anyone who disagrees. The only difference is there’s no one to film it, because they take everyone’s phones.
The personnel problem
The main issue facing the Ukrainian army in the short term is the lack of troops. Desertion and AWOL rates, rising drastically throughout 2025, were finally classified as secret by Ukraine in December 2025.
It is most likely that desertion rates continue to rise, particularly due to the fact that already-low military salaries were frozen by the 2026 budget. Those who are not serving at the frontlines — the majority of the Ukrainian army — continue to receive 20,000 hryvnia a month, under $500 USD. By comparison, the average salary is 27,000 hryvnia. Officers in the rear also receive a minimum salary of only 24,000 hryvnia. The much higher level of Russian military salaries is a topic of constant complaint among Ukrainian troops.
Though salaries are low, inflation continues to rise. According to the IMF’s October 2025 world economic outlook, Ukrainian inflation rates stand at 12.5%. This is much higher than official statistics, which claim it is 8%. Russia, according to the IMF, experiences inflation rates of 9%.
In late December 2025, the publication strana.ua cited sources in the army on how low salaries are likely to increase desertion rates:
“It’s not emotion or fear. I’ve been in the army for a long time. But after the 2026 state budget was passed, it became absolutely clear that the government wouldn’t raise military salaries. That is, there’s money to increase MPs’ pay to 200,000, but not for us. It’s like there’s a lot of us and there’s not enough for everyone. But I can’t even support my family on a base salary of 20,000 hryvnias. My wife is already in debt, because we can’t survive on that amount,” one of the soldiers told us.
His plan for the next month is to find a shadow job—one without official employment, so as not to expose his salary—and quietly work remotely from a rented apartment, without leaving home. He’s already prepared for this by withdrawing the remaining funds from his account. There’s no real estate or car registered in his name. The state has nothing of his assets to seize and take.
The soldier claims that many of his fellow soldiers have the same attitude.
“We have a baby, my wife is breastfeeding and can’t go to work. We’ve already spent our pre-war savings and are in debt, which we don’t know how to repay. A salary of 21,000 isn’t enough for anything. A soldier can’t support his family right now. A military service assignment is the only option. I’m preparing for it. We even discussed it at the unit, and the sergeant had no answer. He just said, ‘Whatever, do as you please, there won’t be any more money.’ They won’t even hold us back. We’ll leave together,” the soldier told us.
According to him, those most likely to desert are military personnel with families, and for economic reasons. For those who are single, it’s easier: they are fed and clothed by their unit. He predicts that desertion may become an even more widespread phenomenon in the army in the near future. Moreover, officers aren’t even surprised by this and aren’t trying to combat it. They, too, lack money.
The Europeans know that the Ukrainian army is hollowing out due to desertion. Their solution is to send young Ukrainians in the EU back home. There, they can join the armed forces and fight for Western Civilization.
German chancellor Mertz announced in his January 6 speech alongside Zelensky, Starmer and Macron that he would like young Ukrainian men to stay in Ukraine:
Reconstruction is inextricably linked to security guarantees. Economic strength will be an essential guarantee that Ukraine will continue to credibly deter Russia in the future.
Dear Volodymyr , I want to be frank: This also creates expectations for Ukraine. Among them—and you know this; we already discussed it in Brussels—is the need for Ukraine to ensure that its young men then dedicate themselves to serving a secure and economically healthy Ukraine, instead of leaving for Germany, Poland, or France, as we are currently witnessing. This is an issue we both discussed in Brussels. I believe this is an expectation that Ukraine can and should fulfill.
This isn’t the first time Merz has called for repatriation of young male Ukrainians. He said the same thing in November of last year as well.
Merz’s claim that Zelensky agrees with him on this matter is somewhat strange, given that it was Zelensky who opened the borders for Ukrainian men aged 18-22 late last year. At the time, European-funded liberal nationalists in Ukraine blamed this move on Zelensky’s supposed preparation for elections — a way to get points with the younger electorate, always Zelensky’s stronghold.
European assets in Ukraine like the comedian and presidential-hopeful Serhii Prytula agreed with his German paymasters, stating that the lack of young Ukrainian men is apparently bad for domestic businesses. Prytula comes from the Soros NGO ecosystem, and comes from the Holos party that Francis Fukuyama once hoped would win the presidential elections instead of Zelensky.
In other words, the Europeans and their assets in Ukraine hope that any problems at the frontlines can ultimately be solved — or at least mollified — by reducing the mobilization age down from the current 25 years.
Militarists see political risks from the deserters as well. In May 2025, Ukraine’s premier ‘Sorosite’ liberal nationalist publication Ukrainska Pravda put out a famous editorial warning that the millions of draft-dodgers could constitute a rival political force to the nationalists in future. As you can see in the photo below, the (chronic draft-dodgers) at Ukrainska Pravda are firmly on the side of the brave soldier with strange black and white patches, and not the despicable men who don’t wish to die for NATO.
This fear of the pro-peace silent majority is widespread. Top Sorosite publicist Vitaliy Portnikov constantly talks of the danger that a revanche of ‘pro-Russian forces’ (those who don’t agitate for endless war while living abroad, like Portnikov does).
In mid-November 2025, Roman Kostenko of the atlanticist Holos party made some other interesting claims about the draft-dodger/deserter danger. According to him, ‘millions of draft dodgers are simply hiding, walking, and observing’ — biding their time, in other words.
Kostenko, secretary of the parliamentary security and defense committee, also claimed that ‘soon, the number of deserters will be the size of the army’. For reference, the Ukrainian government claims that the army numbers 800,000 men, though many believe that its real size is between 300,000 and 500,000 due to desertions and other losses. Incomplete official statistics recorded close to 200,000 cases of desertion and AWOL over the course of 2025. It is likely that the real figure is much higher, since commanders are loath to share such humiliating instances.
Kostenko also feared the political propensities of deserters. In his view, this massive group could soon create a powerful political force, one that would ‘express their grievances to those who are currently fighting.’ Given that Kostenko is a politician insulated from the frontlines in his Kyivan television studios, whereas many deserters only flee the frontlines after weeks, months, or years of brutal fighting, his condescension towards deserters is quite questionable.
Finally fortifications?
Where men are lacking, concrete will suffice. At least, Ukraine’s government thinks so.
