Authors

Discussion

This paper rethinks the political economy of war from the ground up -- beginning not with strategy or weapon systems, but with the people whose labour sustains the war. Drawing on a large archive of in-depth interviews with Ukrainian soldiers and others situated along the transnational value chains of the war effort, I explore how the ongoing war is reshaping regimes of value, worth, and personhood -- and how this, in turn, is transforming the Ukrainian military by altering understandings of service, belonging, and legitimate orders within it.

As Ukraine’s large-scale war enters its fourth year, the armed forces face acute shortages not only of materiel but of people. Many frontline units are staffed at a fraction of their planned capacity, while coercive mobilisation measures attempt to fill the gaps. Soldiers critique their command by describing themselves as 'meat,' variables in an equation, or as expendable instruments in a calculus of attrition. Their experiences of exhaustion and devaluation reveal how scarcity, coercion, and uneven risks translate into new hierarchies of worth and authority that transform military order.

The paper situates these dynamics within the broader transformation of Ukraine’s military and industrial base since independence, and its integration into the global systems that sustain modern warfare. Ultimately, it shows how the moral economy of military labour emerging under conditions of acute scarcity shapes how Ukraine’s armed forces fight the war -- prompting shifts toward drone warfare, a shift away from manoeuvre warfare to small-group infantry 'infiltration', and selective subversion of orders in response to both internal constraints and Russian military adaptations.