Ukrainain Frontlines Desperately Understaffed as Personnel Crisis Worsens

Amid continued Russian rising concerns in the Western world regarding the ability of the Ukrainain Army to sustain its frontline positions, and following months of continued advances by Russian forces, a growing body of reports from both sides of the war have highlighted that Ukraine’s serious personnel shortages have left its frontline units increasingly critically undermanned. Particular attention was recently drawn to the issue by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who stated on September 4 that combat-ready units in the Ukrainian Armed Forces are staffed no more than 47-48 percent. He added that the Army was holding its current positions by transferring brigades from one direction to another. This strongly corroborates reports from both Ukrainian and Western sources. Days prior, former chief of staff of the 12th Brigade of the Ukrainian National Guard Bogdan Krotevich lamented thatbrigades on frontline were staffed at just 30 percent and were barely combat-ready.

Speaking in late August, Krotevich observed: “The brigades on the frontlines are operating at only 30% of their standard strength. According to regulations, they are generally incapable of sustained combat. Yet, they are repeatedly ordered to attack, regain tactical positions, and hold ground. They can’t even defend themselves effectively.” He added that forces the Ukrainian government refers to as “reserves” are units reassigned from one sector to another, rather than fresh, fully equipped new units. Regarding the possibility of further mobilisation addressing the issue, he added: “Even if, hypothetically, 100,000 servicemen were mobilised tomorrow, they would undergo a month-long basic training and then be thrown into the frontlines. This would only temporarily alter the situation for a couple of weeks before everything reverts to its previous state.” Krotevich previously in early August detailed an increasingly catastrophic situation facing Ukrainain forces in the disputed Donbas regions.

A primary cause of Ukraine’s severe personnel shortages has been the tremendous casualties that the country’s forces have sustained since the outbreak of full scale hostilities with Russia in February 2022. Leaked military files from Ukraine’s Chief of Staff in August confirmed that the Ukraine Armed Forces had lost more than 1.7 million personnel, including both those killed and missing, including 118,500 personnel killed or missing in 2022, 405,400 in 2023, 595,000 in 2024 and 621,000 so far in 2025. Commenting on the information, Ukrainian member of parliament Artem Dmytruk reported: “The lists of the missing today contain more than a million people, and of course these people are most likely dead, while their families remain in complete ignorance. The situation is tragic, the situation is frightening.”

Casualty rates in Ukrainain conscript units have been particularly extreme, at times approaching 80-90 percent, with the Wall Street Journal being among the sources to report that the Ukrainian Army has relied on recruiting poor men from villages and sending them to the frontlines with just two days of training. The life expectancy for personnel on high intensity frontiers has at times been as low as just four hours, according to reports from Western observers on the ground. The extent of losses suffered, the depletion to exhaustion of the country’s Soviet era arsenals, and the serious difficulties which countries in the Western world have had replenishing losses, have raised further questions regarding the sustainability of the ongoing war effort. The possible collapse of Ukrainian frontline positions could allow the Russian Army to significantly further accelerate its advances,