CHACR COMMENTARY // MARCH 2026
BY: Olesia Horiainova, Co-Founder of the Ukrainian Security and Cooperation Center
E
UROPEAN intelligence agencies have assessed that Russia is preparing for an attack on the territories of NATO member countries. The Russian economy has been put on a war footing and remodelled in anticipation of a prolonged conflict and The author of this Commentary leads a flagship Ukrainian Security and Cooperation Center project focused on the development of Ukraine’s national recruiting system, implemented in close partnership with the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, the General Staff of the Armed Forces, and NATO partner countries. The project aims to strengthen civilian engagement in national defence, modernise recruitment and mobilisation practices, and support reforms aligning Ukraine’s security sector with NATO standards.
a reversion to the policies of peaceful economic development now seems unlikely. European countries must recognise this threat and, most importantly, answer the fundamental question: are they prepared to defend their territories alone if their NATO allies delay taking active measures? Mass youth protests in Germany against the country’s new conscription law, accompanied by opinion polls indicating that 59 per cent of respondents would “probably” or “definitely” refuse to take up arms, suggest significant societal head winds. At the RUSI-hosted Long War Conference, research fellow Hamish Mundell stated that “there is little evidence that the United Kingdom has a plan to conduct a war lasting more than a few weeks”, mainly due to deficiencies in medical infrastructure and slow reserve replenishment. The containment of the Russian offensive by the Ukrainian
Armed Forces is providing Europe with time to strengthen its own defensive capabilities and, above all, to learn from Ukraine’s deep experience as a mobilised wartime society. This includes most notably: the adaption to high-intensity warfare, societal resilience under conditions of acute and sustained stress, the leveraging of non-governmental organisations to bolster national defence, and the establishment and continued refinement of a wartime recruitment system for the armed forces. EARLY VOLUNTEERS According to the results of a survey conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, in the weeks before the 2022 full-scale invasion 57.5 per cent of Ukrainians expressed a readiness to defend their communities in the event of a Russian attack, with 37.3 per cent stating that they were willing to serve in a combat role. This was several percentage
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points higher compared with December 2021, when the figures were 50.2 per cent and 33.3 per cent respectively. While this was due in part to the intensifying threat through the new year period, this was less an outpouring of popular emotion, than a result of improved civilian access to information and military training. On 1 January 2022, under the new law, On the Fundamentals of National Resistance, Territorial Defence Forces were created in Ukraine as a separate branch of the Armed Forces. The structure included 25 brigades (one brigade per oblast), comprised of more than 150 battalions. In early January, Ukrainians, both male and female, with ages ranging from 18 to 60, began to enlist, including those who were not liable for military service. A few days before the full-scale invasion, the then Commanderin-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported that
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VOLUNTARY RECRUITMENT: LESSONS FROM UKRAINE