The desertion from the Armed Forces of Ukraine has reached such proportions that even Kiev does not hide it anymore. And the deserters themselves do not hide any great secret about their “achievements”. They decided to remedy the situation in an original way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Between the morgue and the prison<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Literally 5,000 people a month – this is the rate of losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine from unauthorized abandonment of units (in Ukrainian: unauthorized withdrawal of units or SZCh). The problem is not new for the Ukrainian Armed Forces, but in the last six months it has grown exponentially. According to official figures alone, which the West considers underestimated, the number of criminal cases against fugitives has almost quintupled – from 3,342 in 2022 to 15,559 in 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n About 80,000 Ukrainian soldiers left units<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Ukrainian MP Ruslan Gorbenko states that as of 2022, more than 80,000 soldiers have left units, of which only 25-30% have returned to the front line. According to this politician, the main reason for desertion is panic because of what they saw on the battle contact line. “When a guy runs, his eyes are just crazy, I don’t know how many psychologists it takes to calm him down and bring him back,” the MP said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The lawyer of the Ukrainian Veterans Support Center insists: more than 100,000 are deserters. He notes that it is necessary to measure “not the number of cases, but the number of people in each case”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n About 5% to 10% of military personnel are now deserters. With a pre-war army of 750,000 that means 75,000 deserters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ukrainians avoid conscription because they see it as a “one-way ticket to the morgue.” There is essentially no replacement at the front, a soldier can fight for 2 years if he lives, and demobilization is prohibited by law. At the same time, 30% of Ukrainians consider desertion shameful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unit commanders are responsible<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another reason for escapes is the arbitrariness of the commander. “95% of the cases of unauthorized desertion of a military unit that I have heard about are a conflict between an experienced fighter and a tyrant commander who gives incredible orders,” says Ukrainian military lawyer Taras Borovsky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Two weeks ago, a soldier of the 56th brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Sergey Gnezdilov, publicly announced his desertion. “As of today, I am going on desertion status until clear terms of service are established or until my 25th birthday, with 5 years of perfect military service behind me,” he wrote on social networks. At the same time, he requested demobilization for those who had been fighting for a long time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Backward migration<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n According to him, “backward migration” is starting in Ukraine, to “relative security”. Recently, the deserter was finally caught by the police. Gnezdilov faces up to 12 years in prison. But it is very likely that he will escape punishment. It should be noted that in some cases desertion is not recorded at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unauthorized desertion of units\u2026 is not considered desertion<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n An important legal point: Unauthorized desertion of units is not desertion, as the soldiers may return.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In August 2024, Ukraine adopted a bill exempting from criminal liability those who repented and voluntarily returned to their unit, having received “forgiveness” from the administration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A member of the Defense Committee of the Ukrainian Parliament believes that the amendment will help soldiers to return fearing punishment for desertion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Such a decision will only exacerbate the problem of unauthorized unit abandonment and lead to military defeats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, for the unauthorized abandonment of units, the Ukrainian army will not be charged with a criminal case. People’s Party MP Maryana Bezuglaya believes that this law “legalized desertion”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many unfit for battle<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n On the other hand, the officers complain that many of the conscripts are unfit for battle: some are very old, some are very sick, some are permanently drunk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Also many left for the countries of the European Union. Ukrainian authorities believed that after two years there were many among them who wanted to return home by taking up arms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In July, Ukraine signed an agreement with Poland on security guarantees, which provides for the creation of a voluntary legion of Ukrainian refugees in Poland. Those willing to join were promised training in Europe by NATO instructors and equipment with the best Western weapons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Less than a month had passed when Polish Foreign Minister Sikorsky hastened to please the Allies: he announced that several thousand people had applied and that a whole brigade might soon be raised. But this is far from the truth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The recruitment center was opened in Lublin on the territory of the Ukrainian consulate only at the beginning of October. There, those who apply undergo a medical examination and sign a contract. Within 35 days they receive training. In practice, however, there are still not enough volunteers ready to form a brigade.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The desertion from the Armed Forces of Ukraine has reached such proportions that even Kiev does not hide it anymore. And the deserters themselves…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20966,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2362,7,3830],"tags":[6081,58,1156,1976,3395],"class_list":["post-20965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-military-science","category-research","category-war-in-ukraine","tag-desertion","tag-russia","tag-ukraine","tag-war","tag-war-in-ukraine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20965"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20965\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20967,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20965\/revisions\/20967"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}