Last week Defense Minister Mykhailo Yezhel signed the order on the new draft to national army service. 26,000 draftees born in 1985-1992 will don their military cammies this April-May.

Military authorities say the number of citizens willing to serve in the army has exceeded the number of vacant spots over the last few drafts. Today, at the very start of the draft campaign the number of candidates for each vacancy in the army is 6-7 people. Last fall in Dnipropetrovsk there were 18 candidates for each vacancy.

Besides the sparsity of the drafts themselves (on average less than 1,000 draftees in every oblast) the General Staff attributes such a number of candidates to material factors: it is difficult to find jobs for high school graduates that were not accepted into university.

Army recruits earn a salary of UAH 200 – 300 on top of room and board. In many depressed regions parents convoy their sons to enlistment offices to make sure they are recruited to serve the country.