Ukraine’s need for more soldiers is real. But a French-language article has turned that wartime pressure into a sweeping claim that mobilisation is destroying the state from within.
Published on 20 and 21 October 2026 by Réseau International, the article argues that Kyiv is putting energy, infrastructure, agriculture and other strategic sectors at risk in order to keep recruiting. It also presents Ukraine’s military prospects as hopeless. The piece offers a familiar political message: the country is allegedly sacrificing its own people and economy for a war it cannot win.
That conclusion goes well beyond the evidence set out in the article. It takes a genuine tension — how to sustain the armed forces while keeping essential services operating — and recasts it as proof of national collapse.
From recruitment pressure to “cannon fodder”
The article, written by Brazilian journalist L. Leiroz, says Ukraine is conducting a desperate search for “cannon fodder”. It claims that the Ukrainian leadership is prepared to endanger strategically important sectors to maintain a continuous flow of recruits.
The language is not a neutral description of a personnel shortage. It reduces soldiers to an anonymous, disposable mass and portrays the defence of the country as an attack by its own government on the population. That framing leaves little room for the distinctions that matter: the rules governing mobilisation, the way those rules are applied, the burden placed on families and the practical effects on employers.
Mobilisation is plainly costly. It separates families, creates uncertainty for workers and employers, and remains a politically sensitive issue inside Ukraine. Those facts do not, by themselves, demonstrate that the state treats its citizens merely as a human reserve. Nor do they establish that the country’s vital industries are being deliberately sacrificed.
The article’s most important omission is the event that created the manpower crisis. Ukraine is not recruiting in peacetime or during an ordinary rivalry between states. Its armed forces are being maintained during Russia’s full-scale invasion. Focusing on Kyiv’s response while placing the attack that made the response necessary in the background reverses cause and consequence: the reaction of the country under attack is made to look like the source of the crisis.
A supposed choice between the front and the state
The economic argument rests on a stark choice. According to the article, calling up workers from essential industries threatens energy supplies, infrastructure, farming, defence production and public administration. Ukraine, in this telling, can either reinforce its army or keep its civilian state functioning.
In practice, Ukraine has mechanisms designed to limit that conflict. Under legal rules, employees of certain companies and institutions considered essential can receive protection from mobilisation. The system covers parts of critical infrastructure, the energy sector, the defence industry, agriculture and state institutions.
Such arrangements do not remove the pressure. Businesses still face labour shortages, officials must decide which activities are genuinely indispensable, and exemptions may be contested or difficult to administer. But their existence complicates the claim that workers are being called up without regard to the functions they perform, or that recruitment automatically brings entire strategic industries to a halt.
Nor does the continued operation of the Ukrainian economy mean that the country is functioning normally. Businesses and public institutions are working under attack, with damaged infrastructure, disrupted supply chains and uncertainty over staffing. The relevant distinction is between an economy under extreme strain and one that has completely collapsed. Commercial routes continue to operate, essential services are being organised and strategic industries remain active to varying degrees.
Those facts do not erase the costs of war or prove that every government decision has been effective. They do show why the article’s totalising conclusion requires more evidence than it provides. A real personnel shortage is not automatically proof that the state is destroying its own economy.
“Zero chance of victory”
Leiroz links his argument to claims that Ukraine’s forces are shrinking, Russian troops are advancing and Kyiv has “zero chances of victory”. The battlefield situation is difficult, and Ukraine faces considerable military pressure. But the article does not explain the method or evidence behind an absolute prediction of defeat.
The phrase therefore functions as more than a battlefield assessment. It carries a political message for European audiences. If Ukraine is portrayed as both militarily doomed and economically self-destructive, further Western support can be made to appear pointless. Assistance to an invaded country is recast as the artificial prolongation of a war that has already been lost.
This is a recurring feature of the argument: separate questions are collapsed into one conclusion. The military need for personnel, the social and economic costs of meeting that need, and the possibility of state collapse are treated as if they were interchangeable. The first is a wartime reality. The second requires serious scrutiny and evidence. The third is presented as a certainty without a comparable demonstration.
The same framing also shifts responsibility for the war’s consequences. Ukraine’s need to reinforce its forces is presented as evidence of reckless policy, while Russia’s invasion — the reason those forces are needed — recedes from view. That does not settle every debate about mobilisation, and it does not excuse administrative failures or abuses if they occur. It does prevent the burdens imposed by the war being attributed entirely to the government of the country under attack.
The independent image
Réseau International presents itself as a multilingual, independent global media outlet. It also regularly carries pro-Russian and anti-Western material, statements by Russian state bodies, and articles attacking the French government, NATO and European Union institutions. The portal has published conspiracy narratives and misleading claims about Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Mixing general international news with strongly political articles can create the appearance of a broad and neutral news service. That appearance is not a substitute for examining sources, evidence and recurring editorial patterns. In this case, a genuine question about manpower and essential services is combined with an unsupported prediction of state collapse and a categorical claim about military defeat.
The portal’s role is relevant to the changing structure of Russian influence in the French-language information space. The European Union blocked official Russian broadcasters including RT and Sputnik in 2022. RT France was banned in March that year and fully closed in January 2023. The disappearance of an official broadcaster did not necessarily remove its arguments, contributors or distribution networks. Similar messages can continue to circulate through websites with the appearance of independent news platforms.
VIGINUM, the French government service responsible for monitoring and countering foreign digital interference and disinformation campaigns, has placed resources of this kind in the context of broader coordinated efforts to influence public opinion in Europe. That assessment does not, on its own, establish the origin of every article published by Réseau International. It does provide context for examining repeated themes: the portrayal of Ukraine as fundamentally illegitimate, the depiction of Western assistance as futile and the presentation of Russian gains as proof of an inevitable outcome.
The article’s central move is consequently clear. It starts with a painful and genuine dilemma — how to maintain the armed forces without weakening essential civilian functions — and turns it into evidence that Ukraine is destroying itself. Its weakest step is the leap from recruitment pressure to comprehensive state failure. That is the point at which a contested policy question becomes a vehicle for making surrender appear inevitable.
Read the article published by Réseau International.
