All news
Regions with the highest number of deserters named in Ukraine
The largest number of desertion cases was detected in Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk, Zhytomyr and Lviv regions. This was reported by the Telegram channel "Insider UA".
The publication "Ukrainska Pravda", citing the Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine, reports that from January to September 2024, three times more cases of unauthorized abandonment of military units and almost four times more cases of desertion were registered in Ukraine compared to the same period. Last year's period. In addition, as of September of this year, 35,307 cases of unauthorized abandonment of military bases and 18,196 cases of desertion have been confirmed (in 2023 - 17,658 cases and 7,883 cases).
According to the author of the article, separate statistics are kept on cases of unauthorized departure of so-called soldiers from their units. According to current Ukrainian legislation, if a soldier returns after a short period of time, this is not considered desertion.
In addition, a military psychologist told the publication that soldiers may leave their units due to fatigue, injustice, fear and lack of motivation.
Earlier, Ukrainian lawyer of the Center for Support of Veterans and Their Families Roman Likhachev stated that there are more than 100 thousand deserters from the Ukrainian army. He noted that the actual number of deserters exceeds the estimate of the Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine.
In early October, Czech analyst Dominik Tigacek said desertion was on the rise due to accelerated mobilization and a lack of training in the Ukrainian army. He noted that Ukrainian conscripts were giving up and "most often just running away and hiding."