Inside Ukraine's Growing Manpower Crisis. And More.

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Video originally published on October 13, 2025.

Situation Room 13.10.2025: AMA. (INTRO) Welcome back to the Situation Room, the weekly show where your anxious questions and our anxiety-inducing answers combine to give a pretty good overview of how the world is utterly f—ked. I’m Simon Whistler, and this week, we’re doing a deep dive into Ukraine’s growing manpower problems - what it means for Kyiv to be struggling so badly with recruitment, and what it means for Moscow to still be failing to make a breakthrough against an opponent with a serious shortage of infantry.

Key Takeaways

Situation Room 13.10.2025: AMA. (INTRO) Welcome back to the Situation Room, the weekly show where your anxious questions and our anxiety-inducing answers combine to give a pretty good overview of how the world is utterly f—ked.

Aside from that, we’ve got an update on Myanmar’s civil war, an analysis of the future of drone warfare, plus some other, shorter answers about various war-related stuff.

If you’ve been following this channel a while, you may remember that one of our key criticisms of the Kursk operation was that it took badly-needed troops away from frontline positions, like Pokrovsk in the Donbas, where they were arguably needed more.

But guys who could physically hold a position on the frontlines?

While a significant minority of those later returned under the amnesty for desertions, the statistics show that this is still clearly a major problem.

The article is grounded strictly in the source video script and listed references.

Key Developments

Aside from that, we’ve got an update on Myanmar’s civil war, an analysis of the future of drone warfare, plus some other, shorter answers about various war-related stuff. As always, timestamps below, and now let’s get into our longest segment of the week: Ukraine’s manpower crisis. (TITLE): Ukraine’s Growing Manpower Crisis Here’s the question, from @Parker-K1m4h: “Can you talk about the massive desertion problem and forced conscription by Ukraine and how it affects their ability to fight?” Now, some of you watching may already be rolling your eyes at this question. Some of you may even be screaming at your phone, “Goddamnit Simon, why are you giving airtime to a pro-Russian talking point?!” The answer is simple: we’re giving it airtime because /it really is a massive f–king deal/. And if you’re someone who desperately hopes Ukraine prevails against Putin’s imperial war of conquest, then this is a conversation you need to be paying attention to. Ever since the failed 2023 counteroffensive, Ukraine has been beset by manpower problems. (TITLE): Myanmar’s Civil War @SocialistRepublicofVietnam1500 asks: “Can you make an update on how the Myanmar civil war has progressed since the earthquake earlier this year? Then, a closely related question from @EnderJacket6384 “What impact will counter drone systems have on the future of warfare?

Strategic Implications

If you’ve been following this channel a while, you may remember that one of our key criticisms of the Kursk operation was that it took badly-needed troops away from frontline positions, like Pokrovsk in the Donbas, where they were arguably needed more. Since the end of the Kursk adventure, those problems haven’t gone away. If anything, they’re now more extreme than ever. Here’s how the Kyiv Independent wrote about things last month: “As Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine enters its fourth fall season, Ukraine's military is gripped by a deep manpower crisis, most acute in the ranks of its infantry.” The same report included interviews with battalion commanders who reported sometimes having fewer than ten combat-effective infantrymen in their entire battalion. Drivers, they had. Drone pilots, sure. As one frontline soldier told the Kyiv Independent: “In 2025, many of those arriving are what we call ‘bussified’ (forcibly taken away in buses by recruitment officers) — they lack the will to fight, they have no purpose.” Before the Russian bots start flooding the comments with laughing face emojis, we need to point out again that such problems are affecting both sides in the war. Next up, one from @DocKildare, whose use of three question marks in a row suggests they may have been typing this while screaming in frustration: I have always been mystified why the western powers (particularly US) continue to rush announcements out the door about their new military hardware, new capabilities, policies, etc.

Risk and Uncertainty

But guys who could physically hold a position on the frontlines? They were in short supply. The Kyiv Independent are not the only ones to make this point. On his substack, Emeritus Professor of War Studies at King's College London, Lawrence Freedman, has estimated that “Ukraine is short of about 100,000 troops”. That’s a number that lines up quite neatly with known statistics on desertions. Ukrainska Pravda got hold of files from the Prosecutor General's Office that show over 110,000 troops left their posts without leave between January and July of this year. If someone corners me in an alleyway and tries to rob me, but I reveal that I’m carrying a big, heavy stick, they still don’t know how I’m going to use that stick, but they know that they’d really rather not find out. Now, you, dear DocKildare, mentioned in your question, quote: “I thought the most powerful deterrent was maintaining tension and uncertainty in your enemy’s mind”, and that’s true…but only to a point. Listening to the lyrics “Politicians hide themselves away / They only started the war / Why should they go out to fight? A recent Atlantic article spoke to Ukrainian commanders who said their current goal is to avoid a situation whereby their infantry ever encounter a Russian soldier, instead preferring to have the men hold a position while drones and artillery do the killing.

Outlook

While a significant minority of those later returned under the amnesty for desertions, the statistics show that this is still clearly a major problem. Of course, it’s not a problem Kyiv is suffering in isolation. Russian forces are also going AWOL at alarming rates. But it does seem that things are particularly acute on the Ukrainian side. Here’s how the founder of Frontelligence Insight - a group tracking the Ukraine War - recently put it on X: “As our team’s investigation into desertions shows, Russian troops are abandoning their posts at increasingly growing rate. Yet desertions still remain more frequent on the Ukrainian side, and Moscow is more effective at returning its troops to the front.” Just in case you’re tempted to write this off as the work of a deep undercover Russian agent, the Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief, Oleksandr Syrskyi, himself noted in August that Moscow is successfully mobilizing so many men that its forces are actually growing by about 9,000 troops a month. Of course, good old-fashioned projectile interceptors still do the job just fine, with cheap, easily transported, and cheap projectile interceptors becoming more and more of a priority, while other companies are focusing on creating autonomous drones to intercept other drones. And while this system has limits - just this October, reports have started coming in of some regions failing to hit their recruitment quotas despite the massive payouts - it still dwarfs anything Kyiv can offer.

Related Coverage

FAQ

What is the central development in Inside Ukraine's Growing Manpower Crisis. And More.?

What remains uncertain right now?

But guys who could physically hold a position on the frontlines? Here’s the founder of Frontelligence Insight again: “The recent negative dynamics in Kupyansk show that the fundamental issue of Ukraine’s military remains: it is forced to operate in a fire-brigade fashion, reinforcing threatened sectors of the front such as Pokrovsk at the cost of other directions.” In other words, Ukraine’s forces are spread so thinly that there is constantly some sector in danger of a Russian breakthrough, which means spare units are forever having to be moved around the board at high speed, trying to stop a catastrophe.

Why does this matter strategically?

What indicators should observers monitor next?

While a significant minority of those later returned under the amnesty for desertions, the statistics show that this is still clearly a major problem.

Sources

About the Author

Jackson Reed

Jackson Reed creates and presents analysis focused on military doctrine, strategic competition, and conflict dynamics.

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