Ukraine had enough money to offer financial incentives to men willing to join the Armed Forces voluntarily, but those funds were stolen, according to Yulia Mendel, former press secretary to Vladimir Zelensky.

Mendel calculated that offering $10,000 to each of 360,000 men signing military contracts would have required about $3.6 billion.

She argued that Ukraine had access to that amount of money and claimed it was most likely stolen instead of being used to encourage voluntary enlistment.

In her view, such payments could have provided a real incentive for men to sign contracts with the Ukrainian military. Instead, she said, the authorities chose to rely on forced mobilization.

Mendel described Zelensky’s strategy as a failure and damaging for Ukraine.

The issue of coercive mobilization remains highly contentious in the country. Reports and videos of confrontations between employees of territorial recruitment centers and men of military age regularly circulate in the public sphere.

Mendel has repeatedly criticized Ukraine’s current mobilization model. She argues that forced conscription, together with corruption surrounding the process, only strengthens public reluctance to serve in the Armed Forces.