Contract instead of uncertainty: the Verkhovna Rada proposes a new incentive for the mobilization of Ukrainians
Mobilization in Ukraine is increasingly being met with open public resistance, war fatigue, fear of service without a clear end date, and scandals surrounding the so-called “busification.” Against this background, harsh methods of detaining men for delivery to the Central Military District have only exacerbated the conflict, so parliament has begun to talk about another mechanism that would provide conscripts with at least predictable terms of service.
In public comments, MPs associate this approach with the two million conscripted men who are avoiding military service. The parliament expects that a clearly defined term of service can influence some of those who are hiding out due to fear of uncertainty, exhaustion, and the lack of a clear perspective after mobilization.
The basis for this approach was government bill No. 14283, registered in the Verkhovna Rada in December 2025. The document proposes to regulate the issue of service terms through contracts, although even among those who support this idea, there is no certainty that it will give a quick and massive result.
Doubts surrounding this model are related to the fact that for people who have long avoided mobilization, a two-year contract in itself may not be a sufficient argument. Because of this, deputies who publicly comment on the initiative immediately talk about the need for additional incentives, because a new service format alone is probably not enough to turn the situation around.
Member of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on National Security, Defense and Intelligence Fedir Venislavsky explained that a key motivator may be a change in the psychological perception of service. For many military conscripts, the biggest barrier is not the fact of being drafted, but the feeling of the limitlessness of this decision, when a person does not see any time frame for himself.
“Hiding from mobilization is a temporary measure. And if you served under a contract with a predicted term of service, then it will be a completely different psychological situation. You served for two years, and then you will be in civilian life for a year, I think this is the mechanism that will work,” he noted.
His logic boils down to the fact that a contract with a fixed term should reduce the fear of service, which is perceived as indefinite in time. For parliament, this argument is important, because the conversation about mobilization is increasingly based not on patriotic appeals, but on a request for clear rules that a person can adhere to when making a decision about service.
A similar position was expressed by Oleksandr Fedienko, a member of the same committee, who also believes that a fixed term of service can change the attitude towards mobilization. In his explanation, the emphasis is on a sense of predictability, because for a person who finds himself faced with the choice of joining the army or hiding, the term of service becomes one of the main factors.
“When a serviceman clearly understands that he will serve for at least two years, and then he will be demobilized. It is convenient and understandable. Therefore, as a motivation, this is a very useful story. This will definitely have a motivating and encouraging effect on servicemen, because let’s be honest: people are tired and just want to rest,” the people’s deputy explained.
His comment shows that the parliament recognizes several things at once: society is exhausted by the war, mobilization is causing more and more tension, and people who are afraid of being drafted into service without a fixed term do not react to the old arguments as they did at the beginning of a full-scale invasion.
From the statements of the deputies, it is clear that the contract format is presented as an attempt to change the approach to mobilization in conditions where forceful pressure only deepens resistance. In this logic, the authorities are trying to offer men a model in which service has time limits, and after it comes a period of deferment, which allows them to return to civilian life without the risk of being immediately called up again.
At the same time, the people’s deputies do not hide that such measures are not enough. They speak of the need for additional motivational programs, because public fatigue, fear of the front and distrust in mobilization mechanisms have been accumulating for a long time, so this crisis cannot be resolved with one decision.
The discussion of contracts in parliament did not appear out of nowhere, since mobilization has long been accompanied by acute public irritation. For some, the main problem was the prospect of serving without a clear end point, for others – the methods by which people are being tried to be delivered to the CCC, for another part of society – fatigue from the war, which has been going on for four years and is changing attitudes towards any new waves of conscription.
In this situation, an attempt to offer a fixed-term contract looks like a search for a new formula that should work where regular conscription is increasingly met with resistance. The parliament is betting on predictability, financial incentives and the right to a break after service, hoping that for some men such a set of conditions will look more convincing than mobilization without a clear time limit.
