Exhausted Ukrainian soldiers need more troops on the front line, not just more artillery, says former US general

• Ukraine was boosted in its war against Russia by a new US aid bill last week.
• But it faces serious manpower shortages, ex-US general Mark Hertling told CNN.

Ukraine got a much-needed boost in its war against Russia when a long-delayed $61 billion aid package was passed by the US Congress last week.

But in an interview with CNN Sunday, Mark Herlting, a former US lieutenant general, said Ukraine still faces serious obstacles in its bid to win back territory seized by Russia, with a shortage of recruits at the top of the list.

"Ukraine needs the mobilization of more soldiers. They have been on the battlefield for two and a half years, and that just takes an incredible account of fatigue, psychological damage, and the toughness of being in the trenches in the front lines will really be a morale factor," said Hertling, a former commander of US Army forces in Europe.

Ukraine has long faced problems recruiting enough troops to renew its military, exhausted and badly depleted after more than two years of brutal war with Russia.

According to reports, units on the front line are seriously overstretched, and troops have to fight for weeks in some cases before they are rotated away from the front line to recuperate.

Its forces have also been experiencing serious artillery and ammunition shortages, but the passage of the US aid bill after months of delays is expected to alleviate these problems.

Hertling doesn't think weapons alone will allow Ukraine to regain the territories it has lost. "Truthfully, and I know some of my artillery brethren would chide me for this, but artillery and long-range systems do not win war," he said. "You have to take on and gain the terrain. Ukraine has not been able to do that to the extent they need to with some of the terrains they've lost to Russia."

The recruitment issue has long been divisive in Ukraine. The country's former supreme military commander, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, clashed with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy over it, saying last year that Ukraine needed 500,000 more recruits.

Ukraine's government recently lowered the age at which people can be drafted into the military from 27 to 25, but analysts believe it could be months before new recruits begin to make a difference on the front line.

Russia has also suffered steep losses in Ukraine, but it has a much larger population and has managed to boost the size of its military through drafts and by offering recruits relatively lucrative contracts.

Hertling said that new US weapons would help Ukraine resist Russian attacks, but it could be some time before they are in a position to take the initiative.

"So we're going to see the front stabilize a little bit over the next several weeks, and then potentially if Ukraine can not only get them, mobilized, soldiers, get them trained, get them into offensive operations, and get them into the ability to retake ground. That's what I'm looking for," Hertling told CNN.