Ukraine to Kick Off Mandatory Military Training for University Students – Men and Women

Ukraine will launch mandatory basic military training (BMT) for all students attending institutes of higher education like universities and technical colleges, starting with the upcoming Fall 2025 semester, a Defense Ministry official said.

The program, set to start Sept. 1, will oblige all students with Ukrainian citizenship – male or female – to complete 90 academic course hours of basic military education in order to receive any degree, Brig. Gen. Serhiy Melnyk, the vice defense minister, said in a Defense Ministry interview.

Student refusal to take the classes, or quit them, would be grounds for expulsion from state-run institutions, he said.

Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada passed legislation mandating basic military education for students in January.

Non-completion of mandatory military education would disqualify a person for employment in government jobs requiring higher education, particularly in the Interior Ministry and the Prosecutor General’s Office, he said.

For male Ukrainian citizens, the 90 hours of obligatory and mostly classroom work would be augmented with a mandatory 210-academic-hour block of field/practical study of military subjects, conducted in specialized training centers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU), Melnyk said.

The practical classes “will be held during the [institute’s vacation] so as not to interfere with the main educational process… [and] students who are found unfit for military service will be exempted from the practical course,” the Ukrainian news agency Fakty reported on March 14.

Practical course subjects would include physical fitness, first aid, marksmanship, reconnaissance, leadership, nuclear and chemical defense, small unit tactics and battlefield survival techniques.

War veterans physically unfit for active service will form the main pool of instructors for this training, Melnyk said. Former combat soldiers wishing to become military training instructors will receive state support to requalify as educators, he said.

For students studying for a 5-year degree, mandatory BMT classes will start in a student’s sophomore year (на другому курсі), and for a 4-year degree in the freshman year (на першому курсі) Melnyk said.

“At this time every citizen of Ukraine, considering we are being invaded by the aggressor, the Russian Federation, must learn military techniques and knowledge. That’s the future. It’s to the advantage not just of the military service, for instance for those who wish to join the military, but also for men who are civilians,” he said.

Female students may attend the 210-hour practical study/field training block option, but they must volunteer for that training, agree to have their names placed on a national territorial defense personnel register, and pass a physical exam, just as their male counterparts do, in order be allowed to deploy to a military facility for the training.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in January said that the total strength of the AFU was about 880,000 personnel of which about 8% are women. The Ministry of Defense on March 8 said more than 70,000 women serve in the AFU, of whom about 5,500 are in high-risk frontline jobs, and almost 20,000 near the fighting line in forward troop elements. Another 3-5,000 Ukrainian women according to news reports serve in close proximity to the front as police, border troops, and emergency responders.

Ukraine’s military has struggled with manpower shortages for years. A national draft is in effect but exempts men aged 18-24 from conscription. The mandatory military knowledge and skill courses taught at university will not oblige a man in that age cohort for service, but he might volunteer if he wished, Melnyk said.

After completing BMT, students will take a military oath and be assigned a military specialty, and be exempted from mandatory military service. Any Ukrainian man not having completed the full 300-hour course would, on the other hand, be subject to conscription, Melnyk said.

According to data published by the Ministry of Education, in 2025 there were 164 institutions of higher education in Ukraine with more than 1.1 million students. Supporters of BMT legislation said that the more than 100,000 students graduating with BMT every year should become the main pool of volunteer recruits, and particularly junior officers and sergeants, for the AFU in the future.

Training for Ukrainian civilians – male or female – wanting to join an AFU combat unit currently is unsystematic and sometimes haphazard, with some inductees passing through months of military courses at times conducted by NATO trainers outside Ukraine, and others going through a basic course about a month long before being posted as green soldiers to a frontline formation.

Many of the AFU’s better fighting units augment new soldier train-up with a month or more of intense combat-focused courses run by seasoned sergeants and other veterans. On Saturday, Ukraine’s 93rd Mechanized Brigade “Kholodny Yar,” a stand-out AFU formation, published a report profiling new recruits operating an infantry fighting vehicle, conducting trench assaults, performing mine search avoidance, and doing land navigation in snowy conditions.

A battalion senior sergeant identified as Sprut said the young soldiers’ initial training taught them basic military subjects, but that they needed more practice on tactical awareness and battle drills. Combat veterans were running the additional training, he said.

Ukraine in February announced it was launching a recruiting program targeting citizens aged 18-24 for volunteer service. According to AFU  statistics made public on Monday, the recruiting effort was delivering results, with 45,657 individual applications received of which 1,086 were received last week.

A Defense Ministry statement said 9,379 candidates had already started the process of registration for service, including 216 people in the past week, of whom women were 21% of applicants. The highest percentages of 18-24 cohort female volunteers were in the western Chernivtsi region (44%) and the central Khmelnytskyi (39%) and Vinnytsia regions (38%), the statement said.