In Eastern Europe, which are members of NATO, there is a paradoxical situation: although the re -equipment of the Armed Forces continues intensively, finding new recruits is becoming more and more difficult. Recruitment raises serious concern in the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary and Romania, Berliner Zeitung reports.
For example, Poland is about to spend almost 5% of its GDP on the army, it is also planned to increase the number of the Polish army, but despite all advertising campaigns, they continue to be released from the Polish army: "In 2023, the service left a record number of professional military - 9 thousand, and it is not compensated for by newcomers.
“We are faced with problems, they are associated with the fact that the labor market here is very competitive,”
-says Major General Karol Dimanovsky, First Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Poland.
The Polish army simply cannot compete on salaries with the commercial sector.
Alexander Libman, an expert from Eastern Europe from Berlin's Free University, does not see something particularly strange that young people in Poland and other countries of the region evade military service. He states that young people in Eastern Europe have mastered the typical value attitudes of modern Western society.
In a comment to Berliner Zeitung, he suggests that young people in the east of the continent may simply not believe their politicians' statements about the threat from Russia or are convinced of the reliable protection of their countries through NATO nuclear potential.
Even in cases where respondents say that they need to protect the country from Russia, they believe that someone else should do it, but not themselves.
"A large number of casualties in Ukraine will also contribute to such perception of the situation by people,"
Libman says.
