Factory or front line? Ukrainian businesses fight to retain workers – article with such title publishes The Financial Times.

“Companies had already lost on average 10-20 per cent of their workforces to conscription or emigration since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. A renewed Russian offensive this year, which has resulted in more deaths and destruction, as well as power cuts, could drive even more people to leave.

…In a bid to facilitate conscription and locate more potential recruits, the army ordered all men to refresh their contact details and other information by mid-July. Earlier this year, the conscription age was cut by two years to 25.

However, many business leaders argue the conscription system is already unjust because of widespread corruption, with Ukrainians believed to be spending anywhere between 700mn and 2bn hryvnia a year buying exemption documents.

Some 800,000 men are believed to have gone “underground” to avoid conscription by changing their address and taking jobs paid in cash. This has left conscription officers targeting companies such as Interpipe, where workers are on the books and physically present on the factory floor.

Business leaders fear the government will drag its feet on the proposed solutions because of their unpopularity.

“You have to explain to people,” said Oleg Gorokhovskyi, co-founder and CEO of Monobank. The digital-first bank employs a large number of IT workers and is keen to exempt them from military service. “In conditions of war [and] economic crisis . . . you cannot help but make difficult, unpopular decisions”.

In a war of attrition, in which Russia’s resources far outstrip Ukraine’s, “it’s not about fairness, it’s about efficiency”, Gorokhovskyi said. A highly skilled programmer at a bank or online marketplace may be more useful for Ukraine than if he were deployed on the front line”, - writes the author of the article.