President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly called for reforming the conscription system, but none of the previous teams tasked with the effort managed to carry it out, she added.
"As the Office of the Military Ombudsperson, we submitted proposals for reforming the recruitment centers to the previous minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, and to the one before him, Denys Shmyhal," Reshetylova said. “But over that time, we have not seen any effective movement — only declarative statements.”
There has been shared agreement on the need for change while working with the previous Defense Ministry leadership, but the problem, in her view, emerged at the stage of organizing and implementing the reform.
"I think I first came to the minister's team around February, and we saw presentations of their ideas for how the military recruitment centers would be reformed," Reshetylova said.
“We attended meetings on this reform as if it were a job. And every time, we heard the same thing — we didn't see movement on implementing the reform. Honestly, and this isn't a jab in any way, I fully understand how difficult this is. But yes, it's a fact: in six months, we haven't moved the mobilization reform forward even half a step. That's a fact.”
She stressed that recruitment center reform requires not just ideas but changes to legislation, along with work with parliament and other government bodies — and that shortcomings emerged specifically at that stage.
Reshetylova hopes the new team will move from discussion to actual implementation of changes.
During a July 16 briefing on the results of his time as defense minister, Fedorov said conscription issues cannot be resolved without a new social contract and real changes within the military.