Ukraine plans to raise military wages, improve contracts and introduce a phased discharge system for long-serving personnel, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced on Friday. The reforms, due to begin in June, aim to ease acute manpower shortages after more than four years of full-scale war with Russia.
What reforms did Zelenskyy announce?
Zelenskyy said the first measures must be delivered in June, starting with higher pay for soldiers, sergeants and commanders. Infantry troops will see monthly salaries raised to 250,000–400,000 hryvnias ($5,700–$9,000), up from a current maximum of about 170,000 hryvnias for those deployed at the front or behind enemy lines for 30 days. Non-combat personnel would receive increases from 20,000 to 30,000 hryvnias per month.
He also announced a “phased discharge” for troops mobilized early in the war, based on clear, time-based criteria. The change would effectively end the current system of open-ended contracts. Zelenskyy gave no specific demobilization timelines, saying details are still being finalized.
The recruitment context
While hundreds of thousands volunteered in the opening months of Russia’s 2022 invasion, most new recruits are now conscripts. The military has been criticized for heavy-handed conscription practices, including reports of forced detentions, street abductions and so-called “busification,” where military-age men are rounded up in public and taken directly to enlistment centers. Cases of soldiers going absent without leave are widespread, and corruption allows some wealthy or connected individuals to evade service through bribes.
Ukraine targets Russian Black Sea oil terminal
In other developments, Ukraine’s General Staff reported its forces struck an oil terminal in Russia’s Black Sea port of Tuapse on Friday. Local Russian officials confirmed the attack, saying it sparked a fire but caused no casualties. The facility was also targeted three times last month. Regional governor Veniamin Kondratyev said a fire at the city’s oil refinery had been extinguished on Thursday, hours before the latest strike.
Moscow’s forces step up strikes
Russia intensified its aerial campaign against Ukrainian territory, launching more than 50 drones at the western city of Ternopil on Friday, wounding at least 10 people, according to Mayor Serhii Nadal. In the southern Odesa region, overnight drone strikes damaged two multi-story residential buildings and port infrastructure. Ukraine’s Emergency Service reported an apartment destroyed in a 16-story building and fires on the upper floors of another high-rise. Zelenskyy said additional overnight attacks on Kryvyi Rih and the Kharkiv region damaged railway infrastructure.
He also said Ukrainian drone attacks have inflicted at least $7 billion (€6 billion) in damage to Russia’s oil industry so far this year, significantly curbing Russia’s oil revenues, a major driver of the war.
Edited by: Dmytro Hubenko