By early February the Verkhovna Rada is supposed to vote on the mobilization law and renewal of martial law. As far as I read from some Ukrainian online articles, exemptions for students, caregivers, parents of 3+ children, etc. will be maintained. I take this with a grain of salt though, as these are analyses of the provisional version of the law, which may perhaps change before the final vote. It seems that the disabled in the lower category (the third one) will continue to be exempt and members of the Ministry of the Interior and therefore law enforcement (police officers, employees of the State Emergency Service, etc.) will not be mobilized (unlike what was rumoured), while there was talk of mobilization of those employed in the Ministry of Defense (I imagine the civilian workers?). The law allowing the mobilization of 25/26-year-olds had already been passed but lacks Zelensky’s signature, which may come. In general in Ukraine there are still people who have never been called up and there are still many active exemptions, which as we see are being removed very slowly, if at all. Possibly, if there are further problems with recruiting, some categories currently exempted might be called in the future. The registry of mobilizable people will be organized electronically and there will be serious penalties for ignoring the summon (jail, seizure of property and driver’s license). According to the military observer Kovalenko, Ukraine could have the capacity to mobilize between 40 and 50 thousand people per month. Of course, that is a very large number, but there is still a large pool of uncalled men. At the moment the priorities in Ukraine is to make this vast mass of people, the vast majority of whom continue to live the same life as always, understand that the war is also about them and is still an existential one, and at the same time some soldiers and officers themselves criticize the excessive methods employed by some territorial recruiting centers and say that the best way to get soldiers is by motivating people, providing good training and equipment, removing incompetent officers, always putting soldiers' lives first, avoiding “meat assaults”, etc. All of these things are indeed commendable.

Earlier I listened to an interview with Lieutenant Colonel Mykhailo Nikolov from the 68th Jager Brigade. He says that in his opinion there is a need for a “total” mobilization of both men and women from the age of 18, not for first line roles but still for support roles in the rear, logistics, defense industries, reservists, etc. In broad strokes this coincides with the thinking of the Ukrainian General Staff - I had read that there are plans to replace the current (and usual) military service with 3 months of training for both males and females in the 18-25 age bracket. This does not mean that they will be sent to the front or anything, but it’s also to raise awareness of the war in the younger segments of the population, and to have people already trained, whether in the future they decide to lower the mobilization age further (as several Ukrainian officers would like, arguing that 22-25 year olds are the best soldiers and shoud be called up).

Another matter the Lt. Colonel raised concerns the use of convicts, which according to him represents one of the priorities at the moment. He said the UAF need to be tougher on this issue and not have issues with using convicts as stormtroopers or sappers for fortifications-building work or demining, on a voluntary basis. There have been cases of convicts being enlisted, but in general it’s still rare as a thing. Many convicts are prohibited from enlisting in addition to being exempt from mobilization. Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights (Ombudsman) visited several penal colonies and testified that there are numerous cases of convicts asking to be enlisted to help their country. There are several issues, though. First, Zaluzhny is very much against it. Next, the number of Ukrainian inmates is much lower than Russia’s. Last but not least, Ukraine lacks legislation both for the status of convicts once released from service (a special law needs to be made that would give them amnesty or something alike), and lacks (according to Lt. Colonel Nikolov too) military provisions that would allow for legal strict discipline against those convicts who disobey orders, run away, etc. At the moment, to my knowledge, the convicts fighting on the Ukrainian side are few and equated with regular soldiers, at most they are in the assault detachments of several units along with “refuseniks”.

lack of trust in institutions, which are perceived as malign and corrupt.

There could be instances of this, but I wouldn’t pay a lot of attention to such videos, we are talking about limited cases anyway. Also they are concentrated to a good extent in Odesa, where the head of the territorial recruiting center (the former commander of the 14th Mechanized Brigade, removed from command for ordering a costly assault without artillery support, and who replaced the previous chief of the Odesa TRC who was corrupt and had bought property worth millions in Spain) is very tough and orders harsh methods to his recruiters. Also it is probably the area under Ukrainian control with the relatively highest pro-Russian tendencies, particularly in the elders.

DeepState recently wrote about this: https://t.me/DeepStateUA/18580

It was a failed counterattack in May 2023 to regain Masyutivka in the Kupyansk sector, which had just been lost to the Russians. From what I got, it quite damaged a battalion of this brigade. These facts then became known to the higher ups and the commander was relieved and sent to Odesa, far from front line duties.

Now according to DeepState the 14th MB has good officers and indeed it has been quite successful in defending the positions around Kupyansk over the last months.