The war on Russia, which has been going on for 4 years, has placed tremendous demands on the Ukrainian armed forces. Not only equipment and logistics are crucial, but besides a unchangeable number of military personnel. Meanwhile, the latest statements by the Ukrainian authorities and media analyses show that desertion, voluntary abandonment of service and avoidance of mobilization calls are increasingly common practice.
In Ukraine, the scale of desertion grows. The recently appointed Minister of Defence of Ukraine, Mikhail Fedov, at the beginning of this period presented data that illustrate the scale of the problem: nearly 300,000 soldiers were to voluntarily leave their units and additionally about 2 million men of conscript age are hiding from being called into military service. Many have gone abroad or are hiding in the country, avoiding service.
It is worth distinguishing different categories of incidents related to the escape of soldiers:
AWOL (absence without leave) – voluntary leaving the unit without the consent of the commander, formally penal.
Desertion – knowingly abandoning the service with the intention of leaving it without going back, the most serious form of evasion.
According to authoritative data from Ukrainian law enforcement and media:
From the beginning of the war until the end of the 3rd 4th of 2025, more than 289,000 criminal cases concerning AWOL and desertion were opened in full (including 235 1000 AWOL and almost 54,000 cases of desertion),
In 2025 alone, the number of criminal cases concerning AWOL and for desertion exceeded 161 1000 – including a evidence October with over 21 1000 fresh cases,
Other sources, erstwhile examining data from the years 2022 to 2025, indicate that more than 302 000 AWOL cases and more than 50,000 cases of desertion were recorded during this period.
Why are authoritative statistic different from unofficial statistics? Opendatabot stresses that in any reports, AWOL statistic and desertions are combined, which may inflate data on actual deserters. According to this source, the number of desertion cases could have been around 20,000 cases in the first 10 months of 2024, although this number was much higher than the year before.
The scale of the problem increases with the prolonged war. In 2024, the number of AWOL and defection cases was importantly higher than in the years 2022–2023, indicating intellectual and physical fatigue of the personnel and difficulties with the rotation of soldiers.
Experts indicate respective key causes of this phenomenon:
Combat fatigue – a long-term presence on the front line without appropriate interruptions increases the hazard of soldiers leaving voluntarily.
Insufficient rotation and logistical support – deficiency of adequate staff change can lead to its exhaustion.
Fear of losses and low morale – real advanced staff losses and continuous intellectual force affect decisions to leave the service. abroad media analyses reported thousands of soldiers who did not return after leaving the units for passes or disappeared without authoritative permission.
The advanced number of AWOLs and desertions undermines Ukraine's ability to keep a unchangeable defence line, especially in the face of intensified Russian activities. The deficiency of personnel limits the ability to conduct effective defence and offensive activities. It besides increases the force on command, which must have less and less fighting troops. The second causes aversion to attacks and focus on static defense. As a result, the tactical and strategical initiative is increasingly handed over to the opponent.
Ukrainian military and political leadership signals that the problem is serious but not critical, and underlines the request to modernise the mobilization system, better support for soldiers, solve the issues of rotation and morale. At the same time, the figures of 2 million deviating from vocations illustrate the long-term demographic challenges for the army, which is beginning to fall apart. Morale falls all the more due to the fact that the front soldiers are constantly receiving news from the back, where corruption flourishes, and the oligarchs are playing the best, previously evacuating their children of draft age to EU countries.
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