At the beginning of a large-scale invasion in 2022, 400,000 reservists were mobilized into the Ukrainian military.

Natalia Kalmykova, Minister of Veterans Affairs of Ukraine, stated this at the annual War 2025 forum organized by Ukrayinska Pravda. Militarnyi’s correspondent also attended the event.

This number refers to the reservists of the operational reserve of the first and second stages (OR-1 and OR-2).

On February 22, 2022, the President of Ukraine issued the Order of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine “On the Conscription of Reservists for Military Service by Calling Up Persons from Among the Reservists in a Special Period”.

Before the legal regime of martial law was declared, the call-up of reservists was supposed to last no longer than a year, but with the beginning of Russia’s large-scale aggression against Ukraine on February 24, 2022, general mobilization was announced.

A new type of service – conscription of reservists without mobilization – was approved by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine in 2020, giving the president the right to call up reservists enrolled in the first-stage military operational reserve (reservists of combat units) without announcing mobilization.

This is what the Supreme Commander-in-Chief did a few days before the start of Russia’s large-scale invasion.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced the call-up in an urgent video message on February 22, 2022.

“As the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, I have issued a decree on the conscription of reservists during a special period,” Zelenskyy said.

This was a response to the deployment of Russian troops on the border with Ukraine, both in Russia itself and in neighboring Belarus and the occupied territories.

“We are talking exclusively about citizens enrolled in the operational reserve. We have to increase the readiness of the Ukrainian army for all possible changes in the operational situation,” he said at the time.

Reservists of the first stage of the operational reserve (OR-1) are servicemen who have been discharged from regular military service, military service under conscription during mobilization, for a special period, contract service, who are fit for service in the military reserve by their professional and psychological characteristics and health condition and meet the established requirements for service in the military reserve and have acquired a certain military accounting specialty. Since the beginning of the large-scale invasion, mobilization has been declared in Ukraine, so in addition to the conscription of reservists, mobilization of citizens liable for military service is also taking place.