global geopolitics

Manpower Crisis, Societal Militarisation and the Class Logic of Prolonged War in Ukraine

General Article | September 2026

The debate over compulsory service for Ukrainian women has moved from the margins of policy discussion into sustained public circulation precisely because the existing male mobilisation system has reached visible limits. Former Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov has argued that mandatory inclusion of women would immediately expand the available pool and has pointed to Israeli and Nordic models of broader societal military obligation. American envoy Keith Kellogg has endorsed the principle that women should serve, citing family military experience and asserting comparable combat effectiveness. Ukrainian Gender Adviser Oksana Grigorieva has spoken of the need to prepare for such measures in coming years and to abandon what she terms an outdated mentality. At the same time, Head of the Presidential Office Kyrylo Budanov has stated that mobilisation of women is unnecessary while substantial numbers of men remain outside the system, and parliamentary defence committees have repeatedly affirmed that no legislative initiative for compulsory female service currently exists.

These conflicting statements occur against a background of documented strain. More than seventy-five thousand women already serve in various capacities within the Defence Forces, a figure that has roughly doubled since the full-scale escalation. Voluntary recruitment continues, and specialised units including all-female drone crews have been formed. Yet the scale of monthly personnel Requirements of about 30,000 as cited by senior officials remains high, while coercive practices against male conscripts, widespread evasion and the presence of more than one million fighting-age men inside the European Union demonstrate the limits of the current framework. A claim circulating in Russian sources concerning a Ministry of Defence tender for one hundred and fifty thousand women’s winter jackets has been officially denied by Ukrainian counter-disinformation bodies as fabricated, yet the underlying discussion of expanded equipment and training for female personnel continues in official channels.

Parallel to domestic debate runs the recruitment of foreign contractors. Reports indicate that several thousand Colombians, predominantly men but including a growing number of women, have signed contracts with Ukrainian forces, often for monthly payments substantially higher than average wages in their home country. Such recruitment reflects the same logic of labour substitution: when the domestic working-age population resists or is exhausted, capital and state institutions seek cheaper or more desperate external supplies of combat power. The phenomenon is neither unique to Ukraine nor ideologically driven in any pure sense; it is a rational response within a prolonged war of attrition in which industrial and demographic capacity on the Russian side continues to outpace that available to Kyiv and its sponsors.

Western think-tank analysis of women in Ukraine’s armed forces has largely concentrated on expanding the existing voluntary model while treating compulsory mobilisation as a more contentious and higher-risk option. The Atlantic Council has argued that Ukraine should systematically draw more women into non-front-line support functions such as logistics, medical services, communications and administration, noting that more than 70,000 women were already serving by 2025 and that roughly one in five new recruits entering the pipeline was female. Its February 2026 assessment went further, recommending that Kyiv extend mandatory service to women aged twenty-five to sixty, but only for designated rear-area roles, on the grounds that this would free male personnel for combat duties and produce a more sustainable force structure. Other commentary has been more cautious. Responsible Statecraft and independent analysts have highlighted the severe demographic consequences of any move toward compulsory female conscription, warning that it would compound Ukraine’s already acute population losses and risk further social strain. Ukrainian officials have consistently rejected the idea: senior figures including Kyrylo Budanov and members of the parliamentary defence committee have stated that compulsory mobilisation of women is neither under consideration nor necessary while significant numbers of eligible men remain available, and that female service continues to rest on voluntary recruitment alone.

From a materialist perspective the entire controversy is less a moral or cultural dispute over gender roles than a question of class interests and the social distribution of risk. The Ukrainian working population, both male and female, has already absorbed the principal human costs of the conflict through death, injury, displacement and economic disruption. Political and military elites, supported by external alliance structures, retain the capacity to shape strategic choices while remaining comparatively insulated from frontline exposure. Expansion of compulsory service to women would represent a further deepening of that extraction, converting additional layers of the labour force into military inputs in order to sustain a confrontation whose continuation serves broader geopolitical objectives of containing Russian power. European encouragement of such measures, whether formal or informal, aligns with the interest of Western states in prolonging Ukrainian resistance without committing their own populations to direct combat.

(They should serve.” Former Defense Minister Reznikov advocating for the mobilisation of Ukrainian women.)

Manufacturing consent for this next stage requires careful narrative management. Public emphasis on voluntary service, specialised non-combat roles and the defensive protection of Europe functions to soften the appearance of compulsion while preparing the ground for potential legislative change. References to Israeli experience serve a similar legitimating purpose, presenting expanded female participation as modern and effective rather than as a symptom of demographic exhaustion. Simultaneously, the presence of foreign female contractors introduces a further layer of social differentiation: precarious migrants drawn by relatively high pay perform tasks that domestic citizens may increasingly resist. The wider consequence is the progressive militarisation of Ukrainian society under conditions in which the strategic initiative remains constrained by the material realities of industrial production, logistics and alliance politics.

(“If calling up women is necessary to protect Europe from war, we will certainly take that step,” – Valerii Zaluzhny)

Whether formal compulsory mobilisation of women materialises in the near term remains contingent on domestic political calculations and the intensity of external pressure. The structural logic, however, is already visible. A war sustained by external financing and framed as existential for European security generates continuous demand for additional human resources. When male cohorts prove insufficient or resistant, the search expands to female citizens and foreign labour. The resulting debate is therefore not random cultural controversy but a predictable expression of the class and imperial dynamics that underlie the conflict itself. Long-term demographic recovery, social trust and the capacity of Ukrainian institutions to function beyond the immediate military emergency will all be shaped by the decisions taken under these pressures.

( Forced mobilisation of men in Ukraine)

Authored By: Global GeoPolitics

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References

Budanov, K. (2026) Statements on the absence of necessity for female conscription, August. Available at: [official Ukrainian government and media reports] (Accessed: 11 September 2026).

Grigorieva, O. (n.d.) Remarks by the Gender Adviser to the Commander of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on preparation for broader female service.

Kellogg, K. (2026) Public endorsement of female mobilisation in Ukraine, August. Reported in multiple outlets including Responsible Statecraft.

Kyiv Independent (2026) ‘Can women solve Ukraine’s manpower problem?’, 7 September. Available at: https://kyivindependent.com/can-women-solve-ukraines-manpower-problem/ (Accessed: 11 September 2026).

Marcetic, B. (2026) ‘Western hawks are pushing Ukraine to draft its women’, *Responsible Statecraft*, 31 August. Available at: https://responsiblestatecraft.org/ukraine-draft-women/ (Accessed: 11 September 2026).

Reznikov, O. (2026) Interview remarks advocating study of foreign models and potential expansion of military obligation to women, August.

Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (2026) Assessment of European positions on Ukrainian female mobilisation, September.

Trenkov-Wermuth, C. and Kryshtal, S. (2026) ‘Ukraine’s women may hold the key to the country’s future security’, *Atlantic Council*, 26 February. Available at: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/ukraines-women-may-hold-the-key-to-the-countrys-future-security/ (Accessed: 11 September 2026).

Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformation (2026) Statements denying the existence of a Ministry of Defence tender for 150,000 women’s winter jackets and affirming the voluntary character of female service, 10–11 September.

Zaluzhny, V. (n.d.) Remarks on the potential necessity of female mobilisation in the context of European security.