Two pressures on Ukraine's army, 14 October 2024

What was weighing on Ukraine's armed forces by 14 October 2024? Two developments in the preceding days pointed to pressure from outside the country and from within it.

On 13 October 2024, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated that North Korean troops had been deployed to Ukraine to fight alongside the Russian military. The statement placed foreign involvement in the Russian invasion in a new light.

A day earlier, on 12 October 2024, local media outlets reported that Ukrainian military recruitment officers had raided shopping centres, bars, restaurants and a large concert venue. The raids were reported across several cities, including Kyiv, Dnipro and Kharkiv, and were aimed at detaining men not in compliance with conscription orders.

Mobilisation under strain

The raids belonged to what became widely known as Ukraine's conscription crisis. Mobilisation to the Armed Forces of Ukraine has involved efforts by some citizens to dodge draft orders or leave the country, legislation to penalise evaders and require citizens to register information, and the use of Territorial Recruitment Office soldiers to enrol people into training. Some citizens have resisted those efforts, and there have been cases of forced conscription, sometimes called busification.

Taken together, the reports of 12 and 13 October 2024 showed a war in which Kyiv was drawing more heavily on its own manpower while Moscow was reported to be drawing on a foreign partner's soldiers.