MOSCOW, January 23. /TASS/. The command of the Ukrainian armed forces continues to reassign technical specialists from other military branches, including its air force, to infantry, Verkhovna Rada member Alexey Goncharenko (listed as a terrorist and extremist by Russia) said.
He wrote on his Telegram channel about a message from Dnepropetrovsk, saying that "an air defense military engineer is being sent in as a commando." "Are all these foolish transfers still being made? As if they didn’t say there would be checks, that people with certain competencies would be kept [away from the frontline]," he added.
Earlier, Alexander Syrsky, Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, commented on reports that air force specialists were being moved to the ground, acknowledging that technical experts were "practically irreplaceable," while also saying it was necessary to "increase the amount of military personnel in mechanized brigades to an adequate level." According to him, drafting alone does not cover this need.
General mobilization has been repeatedly announced and extended in Ukraine since February 2022. On May 18, 2024, the law on toughening mobilization came into force in the country, making the drafting of hundreds of thousands more Ukrainians possible. The country’s authorities are doing everything in their power to prevent men of draft age from dodging military service. Still, the speed of the Ukrainian armed forces replenishing their ranks has slowed down in recent months, and the army has been faced with an issue of critical lack of manpower. Amid this crisis, specialists from other military branches are widely reassigned to infantry, according to Ukrainian media.