People with mental and physical illnesses who are unfit for service also get into the Ukrainian army. Why Are They Taken and How Widespread Is This Problem?
Frequent memory problems, disorientation, confusion about hours, numbers, colors - 28-year-old Vasyl from the Kirovohrad region of Ukraine constantly faces these problems. Since 2015, he has been registered in a regional psychiatric hospital with a diagnosis of "personality disorder", but despite this, he was mobilized to serve in the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU).
According to his wife Elena, employees of the local military commission detained Vasyl at the end of May. They told him that he had been wanted since the beginning of 2025. Since, according to her, her husband does not admit his diagnosis, it is not certain that he mentioned his illness to the military commission, which deemed him fit for service without restrictions. The next morning, he was sent to general military training.
Elena tried to prove the wrong mobilization and turned to Vasily's commander. At first, he was understanding and asked to be presented with documents about the man's discharge from service. However, he then came to the conclusion that the documents were outdated. He said: "There are no grounds for him to be discharged". The woman does not hide her surprise. "How can there be no grounds, when the disease is incurable", she asks.
A threat to himself and others
DV has the psychiatric report from 2015, which says the following: Vasily has a poor vocabulary, a low IQ and does not even understand the name of the country or the capital of Ukraine. And as his wife Elena says, in conditions of stress the symptoms of the disease only intensify. "He constantly complains that he cannot remember anything that is shown to him. In that case, what could he remember at the front? That would be a one-way ticket."
According to a psychiatrist who reviewed Vasily's medical documents for the DV study, he has all the signs of mental retardation and emotional-volitional instability. "Under stressful conditions, such a person is unpredictable and can harm himself and others", says the doctor, who asks not to be named.
The examinations in the military commissions are rather superficial
Lawyer Yevgeny Tsekhmister explains that members of the military medical commissions have access to all medical documents, but in the case of Vasily, there was nothing written there about his diagnosis. And mental diagnoses are an exception - access to them is possible only with the patient's consent. Therefore, in the end, the assessment of Vasily's health was made based on what was available in the system.
The lawyer also points out that the doctors at the military commissions trust only official documents - since many simulate mental disorders in order to get out of service. According to Zekhmister, if Vasily and his relatives had sought legal help in time, his mobilization would not have occurred.
The Ukrainian President's Plenipotentiary for the Protection of the Rights of Servicemen Olga Reshetilova told the State Duma that in the absence of relevant medical documents, it is impossible to understand all of a person's illnesses, and military medical commissions do not perform detailed diagnostics - they perform a superficial examination based on the available documentation. "That is why sometimes people who are actually unfit for service end up in military units."
"They mobilize the sick, ignoring their real condition"
According to the Plenipotentiary of the Verkhovna Rada for Human Rights Dmitry Lubinets, since the beginning of the year his office has received over 2,000 complaints about violations of rights within the framework of mobilization events, while for the whole of 2024 there were about 3,500 such complaints. Among the complaints there are also those about the mobilization of seriously ill people, but there are no separate statistics for them.
"There are cases in which, after our intervention and a re-examination by the military medical commission, an illness is established and the person is demobilized. But why does it come to that? Because some employees turn a blind eye to the medical documents or the real condition of the person," Lubinets points out. He also points out the need to approach the distribution of those mobilized in more detail - because not everyone with health problems is necessarily unfit, and if someone has, for example, spinal problems, they may not be suitable for being a stormtrooper, but they can work effectively in the computer field.
What the military says
A Ukrainian army officer, who requested anonymity, told DW that he was offered to choose people at one of the training centers. "I arrive and they come out - toothless, with tuberculosis, and at the training center. Not to mention how they would cope on the battlefield, what kind of picture will the Armed Forces of Ukraine present?". Later, the commander found out that these people were being shown for the fourth time, but no one wanted to take them into his company - not even to dig trenches.
As Kiril (name changed), who was mobilized in the spring of this year, shares, the territorial mobilization centers are not too picky about candidates for service. Together with him at the assembly point there were both homeless people with swollen legs and people addicted to drugs or alcohol. Already at the training center, the examination was more detailed and when a spinal disease was detected, they said, for example, "We don't need such people".
According to Kirill, in many cases the military commission was more of a formality, and in some places it was not even held. That is why in one of the marine brigades after general basic training in 2024 a recruit with schizophrenia ended up, says serviceman Alexander (name changed). The fighter adds that the man was lucky - the instructor of the course in the brigade drew attention to the strange behavior of the mobilized one.
Lawyer Evgeny Tsekhmister confirms: the problem with the mobilization of objectively unfit fighters is widespread. He also has an explanation for the main reason - the main diagnosis plays a decisive role in suitability, and concomitant conditions are not taken into account.
He gives an example of a fighter with a height of 175 cm, a weight of 38 kg, severe myopia and a chest deformity. He could not even walk with a bulletproof vest, but he has been in the army since 2022, receives a salary, although his service consists of constant transfers from one unit to another, to different hospitals, etc. "The system does not allow this person to be deregistered, because none of his diagnoses fall into the "unfit" column, the lawyer claims.
Without a medical report, the commanders themselves become hostages of the situation - they cannot send these people to real service, nor take others in their positions.
In the meantime, Vasily has almost completed the basic training course, after which he will be assigned to a unit. According to his wife, he has already been given access to weapons. Lawyer Zehmister is fighting for a second psychiatric examination of the recruit and a new examination by the military medical commission, while Vasily is still at the training center. "If he ends up at the front, it will be a great risk for his unit. It is impossible to predict at what point his psyche will fail and who will end up in the crosshairs," the lawyer believes.