By Anastasiia Malenko
KYIV, Dec 1 (Reuters) – Pavlo Broshkov had high hopes when he joined the Ukrainian army in March as a fresh-faced recruit eager to defend his country and earn a bumper bonus to buy a home for his wife and baby daughter.
Three months later, the 20-year-old lay broken and prone on the battlefield, his dreams in tatters.
“I understood this was the moment I would be torn to pieces,” he told Reuters. “I was not afraid of death. I was afraid of not seeing my wife and child again.”
Broshkov is among hundreds of 18 to 24-year-olds who have volunteered to fight on the front lines this year, lured by generous pay and perks in a national youth recruitment drive designed to breathe fresh life into Ukraine’s aged and exhausted armed forces of about one million.
Ukraine is gradually losing territory to Russian troops in fierce and attritional fighting in the east, with commanders and soldiers complaining that the shortage of soldiers is the main factor behind the setbacks. The strains pile pressure on Kyiv as it negotiates with the United States over a peace proposal.
Reuters tracked the fortunes of Broshkov and 10 of his comrades who were among a few dozen raw recruits that received a crash-course in warfare at a military training camp in spring before being deployed to the front.
None of the 11 are still fighting. Four have been wounded, three are missing in action, two are absent without leave (AWOL), one fell sick and another recruit has killed himself, according to interviews with soldiers, their relatives and government records.
The fates of the soldiers provide a snapshot of the carnage wrought on Ukraine by the grinding war against Russia, in which both sides closely guard casualty figures.
Reuters was unable to contact the other recruits who attended the spring training camp and couldn’t determine whether the 11 cases reflect broader levels of attrition in the conflict, which has dragged on for almost four years.
The Ukrainian military and the 28th Brigade where the recruits served didn’t reply to requests for comment for this article.
A CLOSE BRUSH WITH DEATH
Broshkov himself stared into the face of death.
As he lay frozen on the battlefield in the eastern region of Donetsk in June, shot in both legs, he recalled preparing for the worst as a Russian drone carrying explosives hovered a few metres above him, ready to release its payload.
Before it could strike, a comrade shot it out of the sky, almost certainly saving his life.
Broshkov’s best friend Yevhen Yushchenko may have been less fortunate.
The 25-year-old is missing in action after going back into battle in mid-July. His sister Alina is searching for news about what happened, joining thousands of other Ukrainians whose relatives are missing in battle.
“Many say that he died. They share that he died or that he is in captivity,” said Alina, who attended a rally in Kyiv’s main square in late October to bring attention to the missing servicemen. “I refuse to believe he has died until the last possible moment.”
Yushchenko is one of three members of the group listed as missing in action by Ukraine’s interior ministry, along with Borys Niku, 20, and Illia Kozik, 22.
“Sometimes I think maybe it would be better if I’d stayed there with him,” Broshkov, who worked as a store salesman before enlisting, said of Yushchenko.
“To fight and to fall together,” he mused in his apartment in the southern port city of Odesa where he is convalescing with his family.
Yuriy Bobryshev, who joined up after escaping Russian occupation in Volnovakha in the Donetsk region, where his brother was killed, is also not fighting anymore.
The 18-year-old told Reuters by phone from an undisclosed country where he is now living that he would consider returning to the Ukrainian military but with a different brigade, having fallen out with his previous commanders which he said led to the decision.
“I regretted signing the contract. I thought I’d try this, earn some bonus money. But that backfired.”
SMELL OF GUNPOWDER AND CORPSES
The youth recruitment scheme, launched in February, was a sign of the growing strains on Ukraine’s armed forces, which are heavily outnumbered and outgunned by Russia in a war that has killed and wounded hundreds of thousands on both sides.
The average age of the Ukrainian military is 47, according to a senior diplomat with knowledge of the defence capabilities.
The enlistment drive – which offered volunteers a monthly salary of up to $2,900, a bonus of $24,000 and an interest-free mortgage – marked a departure from the forced mobilization that had been in place since the full-scale Russian invasion of 2022.
That mandatory draft initially required all men over the age of 27 to enlist in the military, as officials sought to spare a younger generation of Ukrainians critical to the country’s post-war future, before the age threshold was cut to 25 last year.
“Right now, the Ukrainian Defence Forces have a critical problem with personnel,” said Oleksiy Melnyk, director of foreign policy and international security at the Ukrainian Razumkov Centre think-tank.
After signing up, Broshkov quickly bonded with Yushchenko at the training camp as well as with “Kuzma”, a 23-year-old former restaurant worker who asked to be identified only by his call sign, in keeping with standard Ukrainian military practice.
The spring days rushed by: close-combat training, drone simulations, physical drills, psychological prep, sleep, repeat. Battle-tested instructors hammered in the imperative to abandon personal desires and pull together as a fighting force.
The young recruits complained less and less as their deployments to the front drew near. They learned to obey without question. “You receive an order, you execute,” Broshkov said.
The first orders to go into battle arrived on a windswept, rainy day in mid-June.
Kuzma was among the first of the new recruits to be deployed and said he quickly found himself in mortal danger from a Russian drone strike on the position.
He was badly wounded in the abdomen and when he tried to scream for help, his smoke-filled lungs could only let out a hoarse whisper before he was dragged into a trench by two comrades. Kuzma said he was still haunted by nightmares of his short stint in one battle of the war.
“It was the smell,” he shuddered. “The smell of gunpowder and corpses.”
COMRADES IN BATTLE, PAIN AND NIGHTMARES
The next time Broshkov and Kuzma saw each other was in hospital in Odesa. Broshkov needed a wheelchair to move around and Kuzma had extensive stitches down the front of his torso.
“Two invalids from the 18 to 24-year-olds,” Broshkov quipped.
Broshkov also stays in touch with some other fellow recruits in the group of 11 whom Reuters identified, including Ivan Storozhuk, who was also wounded in battle.
Two recruits said one soldier in the group had committed suicide, citing conversations with other recruits. Reuters reviewed a document, including photographs of the body, recording that a person of the same name had killed himself.
Donetsk regional police didn’t respond to requests for comment on the case.
Broshkov’s recovery is characterised by debilitating leg pains interspersed with nightmares. He says he has few regrets.
“I am 20 years old. I haven’t really seen life, but I went there. If I was offered to do it again, I would.”
He stood by his decision to go to the front line to prevent the war from coming to his home and family. “I did what every responsible Ukrainian citizen should do,” he said.
His 19-year-old wife Kristina said the experience had changed her husband.
“It is difficult for him. Almost all his fellow servicemen disappeared,” she told Reuters.
“It would have been better if this contract had never existed,” she added. “So many young men have died, and these are 18-year-old kids. I think they still need to learn and grow up.”
(Reporting by Anastasiia Malenko; Editing by Mike Collett-White and Pravin Char)
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