This cross-country race that is the Russo-Ukrainian war is bringing out a new generation of officers with a character forged by a decade of asymmetrical combat. These soldiers, determined to defeat the invader, sometimes find themselves up against a military hierarchy still imbued with Soviet habits of thought and a civil society which, in the relative comfort of the rear, tends to demobilize.
“We must tell civilians things as they are. Some do not understand that if it is possible to live almost normally in kyiv, in Lviv, in Odessa, it is because the front is holding. And for it to hold, we need more soldiers! »insists Vadym Tcherni, commander of the 2e battalion of the 28e brigade. This 28-year-old blond colossus, with big arms but a high-pitched voice, speaks from his battalion’s training camp, located about 20 kilometers from the front, not far from Avdiïvka, in Donbass. Bursts of automatic weapons and explosions of grenades fired by the soldiers of the mechanized infantry battalion break from time to time the silence of a sunny May afternoon.
Like many officers fighting since the start of the large-scale invasion, or even since 2014, Vadym Tcherni is quite irritated by the procrastination of the government, which took more than eight months to adopt a law lowering from 27 to 25 years. the age from which men can be mobilized.
The commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army, Oleksandr Syrsky, himself appeared accommodating towards political power by declaring at the end of March that he had “significantly reduced” the number of soldiers needed for a rotation of forces in 2024, initially estimated at half a million men. Volodymyr Zelensky fears that his already declining popularity will fall due to widespread compulsory mobilization.
“My men are worn out”
“We must lower the bar to 21 and end the discussion on demobilization [des soldats au front depuis le début de l’offensive russe en février 2022]», proclaims, confidently, Vadym Tcherni, who embraced a military career at the age of 17. On the other hand, the Russians are sending masses of more or less well-trained soldiers to the front, whether they “sacrifice without scruple, contravening all forms of moral rules and all principles”, testifies the soldier.
He says he is attached to the rule of law, but also insists on the duty that each citizen has towards his country. ” The Constitution [ukrainienne] requires citizens to defend their country. If a man fails to fulfill his constitutional obligations, he must be deprived of certain rights. »
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