Draft:Territorial center for recruitment and social support

Territorial center for recruitment and social support (Ukrainian: Територіальний центр комплектування та соціальної підтримки) is a recruitment center of the Ukrainian Armed Forces used mostly for conscription of ukrainian citizens as one as the only state body of military administration of Ukraine, which ensures the implementation of the legislation of Ukraine on issues of military service and mobilization, which is formed and operates exclusively on the territory of the corresponding administrative division of Ukraine.

Description

Badge of Kyiv urban territorial center for recruitment and social support

Territorial centers of recruitment and social support are formed, liquidated, reorganized Ministry of Defense of Ukraine. Territorial staffing and social support centers may not be assigned tasks that are not provided for by law. Direct management of the territorial centers of recruitment and social support and control over their activities is carried out by the relevant operational commands, and the general command of the Ukrainian Ground Forces, which coordinates the main issues of the activity of the territorial centers of recruitment and social support with the relevant structural units General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.

The tasks of the territorial recruitment and social support centers are the implementation of legislation on military duty and military service, mobilization training and mobilization, management of military records of conscripts and reservists on the territory of the corresponding administrative divisions of Ukraine, control over its condition, in particular in local bodies of executive power, local government and ones who ensure the functioning of the system of military registration of conscripts and reservists on the territory of the relevant administrative division (except Security Service of Ukraine and Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine), provision within the limits of their administrative powers (territorial centers of recruitment and social support Autonomous Republic of Crimea, regions, Kyiv and Sevastopol cities) and maintaining the Unified state register of conscripts and reservists of Ukraine (district territorial centers of recruitment and social support), carrying out activities for registration of citizens to conscription stations, conscription of citizens for military service, selection of candidates for acceptance into military service under a contract, participation in the selection of citizens for service in the military reserve of the Armed Forces, preparation and carrying out in a special period of mobilization of human and transport resources, ensuring the organization of social and legal protection of military personnel, conscripts and reservists, called to training (or inspection) and special meetings for the Armed Forces of Ukraine, war veterans and military service, pensioners from the ranks of the Armed Forces and their family members, participation in the military-patriotic education of citizens, implementation of other defense measures in accordance with the law.

Territorial recruitment and social support centers, as well as their employees, do not have the right to check documents of ordinary people nor detaining and forcibly transporting any person anywhere, however, they have the right to apply:

• to the National Police or its territorial subdivisions regarding the provision of information regarding conscripts about criminal prosecution, absence (presence) of a criminal record;
• in accordance with the procedure established by law to the National Police of Ukraine' bodies regarding the delivery to the territorial recruitment and social support centers of persons violating the rules of military registration or evading mobilization,

who have such rights.

The head of the territorial recruitment and social support center represents the interests of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in relations with the Council of Ministers of Crimea, local state administrations, local self-government bodies, other state bodies, enterprises and citizens on corresponding territory.

The personnel of territorial recruitment and social support centers, as well as transport and material and technical means of said ones are maintained at the expense of the budget of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.

As of 2023, the number of territorial recruitment and social support centers reaches more than 200 and is distributed among four operational commands: "North", "South", "West", "East". However, some of them have separate territorial subdivisions - the so-called "departments" or "branches", together with which total number of such formations approaches 300 or even exceeds.

History

On July 19, 2017, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine issued an order on approval of the pilot project proposed by the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine on the establishment of a territorial center for recruitment and social support from August 1 to December 31, 2017 on the basis of the Chernihiv Regional Military Commissariat (now - Chernihiv regional territorial center for recruitment and social support).

On August 2, 2017, it became known that this pilot project was implemented from August 1, 2017 not only in Chernihiv, but also in Kozelets - the Kozelets District Military Commissariat (now - the Second branch of Chernihiv district territorial center for recruitment and social support) also joined the project.

On November 1, 2017, a representative of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine made public information at a briefing attended, in particular, by experts from the Department of Defense Cooperation of US Embassy in Ukraine about conducting an experiment on reforming military commissariats into territorial recruitment and social support centers in these two military commissariats of Chernihiv region.

On January 12, 2018, plans were announced to follow this example in Volyn.

On April 25, 2018, it became known that the Minister of Defense of Ukraine approved a plan to create territorial recruitment and social support centers on the basis of military commissariats without any territorial restrictions, therefore - on the entire territory of Ukraine.

As of September 17, 2018, such a plan provided for the reformation of 111 military commissariats at Chernihiv, Rivne, Dnipropetrovsk and Odesa regions into territorial centers of recruitment and social support until the end of 2018 and thereafter in all other regions of Ukraine.

On May 28, 2020, a bill was registered in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine regarding, in particular, renaming Ukraine's military units into territorial recruitment and social protection centers, but the process of its consideration was extremely delayed.

On November 1, 2020, tired of waiting for a legislative decision, the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine unilaterally renamed all military headquarters of Ukraine into territorial centers, thus creating a precedent for their further functioning outside the legal field of Ukraine, however, in fact, forever deleting the USSR-inherited term "military commissariat" from names of structures subordinate to it throughout the territory of Ukraine.

On March 30, 2021, on the basis of the above-mentioned draft law, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine did adopt a corresponding law, which in April 2021, it was signed by the President of Ukraine, and therefore entered into legal force. Despite this, apart from the cosmetic changes in the name, he did not change anything at all in the functioning of the former military commanders, which negatively affected the image of the entire reform, leaving such factors as the paper record of conscripted citizens and conscripts in addition to maintaining a unified state register of conscripts, that until now for the newly named territorial centers of support and social protection was considered an additional option in functioning, and not vice versa or instead.

On February 21, 2022, term "territorial center of recruitment and social support" was mentioned already at the same level as relevant body of Security Service of Ukraine or unit of Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine at the Presidential state of emergency decree followed armed aggression against Ukraine and anticipatory following days later by russian invasion of Ukraine.

On February 23, 2022, the territorial recruitment and social support centers completely replaced the former system of military commissariats and abandoned paper records of persons in favor of electronic records based on the "Unified state register of conscripts, conscripts and reservists" of Ukraine already at the legislative level.

However, the corruption that was inherent in the reformed institutions did not go anywhere and, as a result, on August 17, 2023, the President of Ukraine approved the decision of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine , which provides for the dismissal of heads of every regional territorial center for recruitment and social support in the country in connection with the corruptional issues, which was numerous before that.