The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine continues to implement measures aimed at digitalization and reducing paperwork in the army. The published changes concern the mechanism for transferring service members between military units and appointments after returning from self-initiated absence.

This was reported by the General Staff of the AFU.

Electronic recommendation letter — without “climbing” through instances 

A new procedure has been introduced allowing military units to send recommendation letters electronically directly to the commander of the unit where the service member is serving.

Key advantages of the innovation include:

  • the letter is guaranteed to be reviewed quickly; 
  • the service member no longer needs to go through all the approval levels — from squad to battalion; 
  • the subjective influence of certain lower-level commanders is eliminated. 

This is expected to make the transfer procedure more transparent and free of human factors.

Simplified appointment of service members returning after SIA

The changes remove intermediate stages of approval — documents from the new unit now go directly to the General Staff, bypassing corps and operational commands.

The goal is to speed up the appointment process and prevent artificial delays.

At the same time, the General Staff emphasizes:

  • the conditions for returning after self-initiated absence remain unchanged; 
  • seeking a transfer by means of self-initiated absence is pointless and inappropriate; 
  • service members who return after SIA are assigned to combat brigades, including the Air Assault Forces and assault units, according to needs. 

Electronic letters are not a tool to escape from the front line

The General Staff separately stressed: an electronic recommendation letter is not a way to transfer from a combat brigade to a more comfortable unit.

There are clearly defined legal mechanisms for transfers — and SIA is not among them.