Interview des Abgeordneten und Mitglieds des Nationalen Sicherheitsausschusses Fedir Venislavskyi mit RBC-Ukraine: Demobilisierung während eines umfassenden Krieges ist populistisch und unrealistisch. Die Ukraine plant Vertragsdienst mit garantierter Ruhezeit. Nur bis zu 5 % der TCC-Konflikte sind real, der Rest ist russische KI-Desinformation

**Translation:**

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Calls for demobilization during a full-scale war are populism. Instead, the authorities are preparing a transition to contract service with guaranteed rest.

In an interview with RBC-Ukraine, Fedir Venislavskyi, a member of the parliamentary committee on national security, defense and intelligence and an MP from the Servant of the People faction, spoke about “busification,” the real number of conflicts with the TCC, and the likelihood of elections in May.

Key points:

* **No illusions:** Venislavskyi called calls for demobilization a “nonsense” from the point of view of history and the real state of the war.
* **Contract:** Ukrainians are being prepared contracts for 2–5 years. The main bonus is one year of guaranteed rest after two years at the front.
* **Who goes AWOL:** Statistics show that those who go AWOL are mostly new recruits, not those who have been fighting for several years.
* **TCC and AI:** Up to 5% of conflicts with the TCC are real; the rest are “quasi-stories” artificially created by Russian AI to discredit mobilization.
* **Students 25+:** The Rada plans to close the “education business” scheme through which the number of older students has grown.

**Mobilization and contracts**

**— Regarding mobilization. Recently you said this process will undergo changes. In addition, you said conflicts with the TCC should be minimized. How do you see this in general?**

— This is the main task set by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for the new minister Mykhailo Fedorov. The problem of TCC conflicts is, by and large, a very small number compared to the total number of interactions between the TCC and SP and persons liable for military service. But given their sensitivity and resonance, they receive very wide publicity.

We must also acknowledge that Russia uses any conflicts to strengthen the informational component in the hybrid war. This is done, among other things, through their resources and their agents of influence.

Therefore, the key task is to ensure that military personnel — TCC representatives, who in 90% of cases are war veterans — show greater restraint in responding to provocations that often accompany such conflicts.

This is a matter of staffing the TCC and SP, and the General Staff is working on delegating the most composed officers and servicemen for this work, which is very complex and psychologically difficult.

And, of course, it is about explanatory work on the inadmissibility of any human rights violations during the activities of the TCC and SP.

So the issue is very complex. There is no ready recipe for eliminating conflicts. It is being developed, but we understand all the problems that ultimately lead to conflict and are constantly working on them.

Therefore, we will expect what will be presented in the near future, as stated by the Ministry of Defense. I think that when we ensure maximum involvement of Ukrainian citizens in contracts and minimize the number of mobilized personnel, this will significantly shift the emphasis in mobilization measures.

The Ministry of Defense is working on relevant changes that have been announced. Communication is ongoing with various ministries, for example with the Ministry of Finance, because concluding contracts will be accompanied by fairly significant annual payments.

Resources are needed for this. As surveys show, a very large number of mobilized personnel are ready to sign contracts for a term of two to five years in order to have, on the one hand, predictable terms of military service and financial incentives, and on the other — stronger legal protection provided by the contract form of military service.

We are working on this. I think that in the short term — February–March — we will already bring this forward for broad discussion, communication, and adoption in parliament.

**— Regarding the TCC. In your opinion, to what extent is this whole story of conflicts between mobilized persons and the TCC real, and to what extent is it artificially fueled?**

— To answer your question, it is enough to operate with open data repeatedly voiced by the president.

Mobilization measures bring about 30,000 persons liable for military service into the Armed Forces of Ukraine every month. If you divide these 30,000 by all the conflict cases promoted in the media, then by my estimates up to 5%.

The head of the Presidential Office, General Budanov, recently stated that in his estimates it is up to 1%.

I think somewhere between one and five percent — in this range real conflicts arise. That is, if you calculate 1% of 30,000, we understand that this is several hundred cases per month. This is the maximum number of cases that may have such a negative public assessment and reaction.

And again, I stated this from the parliamentary rostrum: these cases are the result of artificial intelligence. Of course, not all of them, but we in the committee have information that the Russians are actively using artificial intelligence to create these quasi-stories of conflict situations.

**— We recently spoke with Roman Kostenko regarding mobilization; he said it is difficult to change approaches to mobilization or conduct some reform because, one way or another, it is still a coercive process. But you say the process will undergo serious changes — so mobilization can be changed?**

— Look, the emphasis must be placed correctly. I fully support Roman Kostenko, and we have repeatedly discussed this in the committee, including with colleagues who call for reforming the TCC during the war.

We definitely will not be able to carry out a rapid reform of the TCC that would be absolutely conflict-free and that would, so to speak, ensure recruiting.

However much we would like it, we must admit that recruiting has not met the expectations we placed on it starting in 2023. About 90% of all persons liable for military service who enter military service are still mobilized through the TCC.

Recruiting provides up to 10%. Plus a certain number who sign contracts. When we introduce contracts and the Ministry of Defense and we in the committee discuss this together with the public and journalists, a significant number of those currently mobilized will be ready to sign a contract.

Given this, we can extrapolate this system to those subject to mobilization. They will also prefer concluding a fixed-term contract.

**— Tell us more about the contract system. On the one hand this is a good initiative; on the other hand, contract servicemen must legally be replaced by other military personnel. And we have certain difficulties with this. How will this problem be solved?**

— This is the most complex question; it is comprehensive and is not directly related to concluding contracts. As I said, contracts will provide for a term of two to five years and after two years of service it will be possible to receive one year of rest — that is, to have predictability: you fight for two years and will rest for a year.

But regarding the substance of the contracts, I would not like to speak now, because this should be communicated by the Ministry of Defense. It is developing financial incentives and specific legal aspects of concluding contracts. Therefore it is better to address representatives of the Ministry of Defense leadership.

In general, when we talk about the most acute issue — which the military quite rightly raises — the need to replace those who are fighting, this is solved more through rotation. Because from our roughly million-strong security and defense sector overall, far fewer citizens directly participate in combat.

This is also an issue the defense minister has identified. It is constantly under the control of Commander-in-Chief General Syrskyi, who promised and is gradually introducing a rotational rest model.

They fight for several months, then must rest for several months without discharge from military service — in the rear in western Ukraine or other safe locations — to rest, conduct training, recovery, and so on.

Work on this is ongoing. But the Russian Federation is constantly increasing the number of its occupation troops on the territory of Ukraine. Our intelligence regularly informs us of this. If in 2024 there were about 500,000, now there are about 700,000.

Against this background, it is quite difficult to talk about any sharp changes in terms of rotation or withdrawal from positions of those servicemen and units that directly ensure deterrence of the enemy.