Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Koretsky, in an interview with BBC Ukraine published by RBC-Ukraine, detailed the reasons why the Cabinet of Ministers initiated a review of employee reservation criteria from mobilization. According to him, the key factor was the critical need of the Defense Forces to replenish personnel and rotate fighters who have been on the frontline for years. Koretsky emphasized that the updated rules are designed to maintain the protection of genuinely critical enterprises while simultaneously cutting off abuses where critical status is used exclusively as a draft-evasion tool.
«There is no politics. There is the survival of the country»
Answering questions about whether public outcry or political scandals caused the freeze on the review, the head of government categorically rejected such versions. «This completely does not correspond to reality. These are manipulations. It is very convenient to hype and be a great fighter 'for all that is good, against all that is bad'. There is no politics. There is the survival of the country», Koretsky stated. He pointed out that the main reason for the changes is the General Staff's need for military personnel to rotate fighters who have been at the front for many years, as well as the need to cover combat losses.
Anomalous growth in the number of deferrals
Citing internal statistics, the prime minister reported that the number of citizens with deferrals or reservations significantly exceeds the number of active-duty servicemen. According to his data, over the past six to eight months, the dynamics of granting deferrals have been growing by tens of thousands monthly. Koretsky warned that if the current trend continues, «literally everyone will soon be reserved», making it impossible to provide the army with the required amount of personnel.
Liquidation of grey schemes and «economic reservation»
The government intends to minimize cases where formally created companies receive critical status without real production load. Koretsky gave an example: enterprises that produce a few drones a year but reserve hundreds of workers. The authorities plan to introduce a mechanism to check the actual activities of such structures. Separately, the prime minister touched upon the issue of so-called «economic reservation»: high employee salaries and the absence of tax debts, he said, are not identical to an enterprise's real criticality for the state. «A purely monetary approach is unfair to the military on the frontline», he emphasized.
Energy sector and heating season
Koretsky also denied fears that on the eve of the heating season, the government intends to reduce the reservation percentage for the energy sector. «They say that on the eve of the most difficult winter, we will now change the reservation percentage for energy workers... We have no such goal. We are in our right minds and understand what this could lead to», the prime minister explained. At the same time, he assured that for enterprises that actually provide for the front and life-support infrastructure, no threats are foreseen under the new regulation.
Timeline for approval of new rules
According to Koretsky's information, the government plans to finally finalize and approve the updated reservation rules within the coming week. Earlier, the Cabinet of Ministers had already prepared relevant changes, but took extra time for their refinement, which, according to the prime minister, was exclusively related to the technical necessity to polish the document rather than external pressure.
