Zaluzhnyi: Soviet warfare methods have driven Ukraine’s mobilization into a dead end
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The drive to liberate occupied territories and hold them using Soviet methods, only with new weapons, has brought mobilization to an impasse, Zaluzhnyi writes. (Photo: Valerii Zaluzhnyi / Telegram)
Mobilization in Ukraine has reached a “dead end” because
Ukraine has continued relying on outdated Soviet methods of warfare in a “war
of machines,” Valerii Zaluzhnyi wrote in a column published by Ukrainska Pravda
on Sept. 15.
Zaluzhnyi, Ukraine’s ambassador to the United Kingdom and
former commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, argued that the
military must adopt new forms of warfare built around modern technology before
changing its force structure and approach to mobilization.
“It was the desire to liberate occupied territories and hold
them using Soviet methods and strategies, only with new weapons, that drove
mobilization into a dead end,” Zaluzhnyi wrote.
The former commander-in-chief said that “mobilization
offered only one chance” and that “fewer and fewer people were willing to take
it.”
“Because we cannot withstand a war of machines against a
vast Soviet country where people are effectively turned into machines and sent
to fight real machines,” he stressed.
Recognizing technology as a new weapon, Zaluzhnyi wrote,
requires taking into account the patterns in the development of military art
and using them to create new forms and methods of employing it. Only then
should the structure of the Armed Forces that employ this new weapon be
changed.
“This is precisely where mobilization fits in as part of a
new strategy based on new weapons and on genuinely new, rather than Soviet,
forms and methods of their use,” the former commander-in-chief wrote.
Only this approach, Zaluzhnyi argued, can improve
mobilization and, most importantly, exert pressure on the enemy and gain an
advantage.
“These changes are absolutely irreversible and affect
warfare at every level: tactical, operational and strategic, as well as the
development of the defense-industrial complex,” he stressed.
Zaluzhnyi also said doctrine is the foundation of systematic
pressure on the enemy and that it “shapes a strategy focused solely on future
victory.”
In his column, Ukraine’s ambassador to the United Kingdom
and former Armed Forces commander-in-chief also explained why
the war in Ukraine is no longer a drone war.
In July, former Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov
said the Defense Ministry planned to present a mobilization reform in July
2026, launch it in August and have it significantly change the situation with
military recruitment by September.
On July 16, during a briefing on the results of his tenure
as defense minister, Mykhailo Fedorov said the mobilization issue could not be
resolved without a new social contract and real changes in the military.
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