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One of the main problems of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in recent months has been the mass desertion of personnel. On December 14, Ukrainian journalist Yuriy Butusov described the catastrophic situation in the 155th Anna Kievskaya Brigade. It was trained and coached in France and then sent to contain the Russian offensive near Pokrovsk (Krasnoarmeysk). The Operational Command “West” and the Ground Forces Command of the AFU staffed the brigade with conscripts.
“Several thousand people were recruited into the brigade literally from the street, the so-called ‘bussified’. They were dressed in uniforms and pretended to be a full brigade. A competent commander was assigned, but he was not given time to form a cohesive team. As a result, among those who were forced into the brigade, there were many cases of unauthorized abandonment of the unit,” Butusov said.
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The result was predictable. About a thousand men deserted. Poorly trained mobilized men went home. The brigade commander was found guilty and dismissed from his post. According to the journalist, this decision was unfair, since the commander was not responsible for the training of the personnel. However, this is the style of the Ukrainian leadership.
At the end of December, the Main Military Prosecutor’s Office opened a criminal case on this fact. It turned out that even before entering the first battle, the Anna Kievskaya Brigade had been abandoned by 1,700 (!) men. This is more than the armed forces of a country like Equatorial Guinea. 900 million euros were spent on training the brigade. But the unit began to disintegrate during training in the French Republic. Fifty men ran away from the French training grounds.
“This raised a question from the French leadership about the seriousness of the Ukrainians’ attitude to the realization of such an expensive project. Such an approach seriously discredits Zelensky’s entire plan”, – said Butusov.
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The information of the Ukrainian journalist was confirmed by the French media. The Ministry of Defense of the Fifth Republic admitted the desertion of dozens of AFU fighters. Desertion is not considered a criminal offense in France. So the local prosecutor’s office doesn’t have the right to arrest a person for unauthorized abandonment of the unit. This is even more true for foreign citizens.
The situation with the Anna Kievskaya Brigade is only the most illustrative. Desertion has become a headache for the Ukrainian command. In December 2024, the journalist Vladimir Boyko reported on the statistics of desertion. In November, 18,984 criminal cases were opened under articles 407 and 408 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. This is twice as many as in October (9487) and 5.5 times as many as in January (3448). In total, from February 24, 2022 to December 1, 2024, 114,280 cases of unauthorized departure from military units were recorded. It turns out that November 2024 accounts for 17% of the total number of desertions for the entire period of the war. The trend is really frightening for the Kiev authorities.
“Moreover, if in November 2024 19 thousand reports were entered into the Unified Register of Pretrial Investigations, it does not mean that exactly that many servicemen deserted. It is at most half of the real number of deserters,” Boyko notes.
Commanders don’t have time or don’t want to report all cases of desertion. Corrupt practices are widespread, where a soldier is officially “sent home” in exchange for a bribe to an officer. According to the journalist, in the spring of 2025 the Armed Forces of Ukraine may simply run away if such rates are maintained. It turns out that now about 38,000 people flee from the AFU in a month. This number’s comparable to the army of Kazakhstan.
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The Polish newspaper Wiadomości quoted a Ukrainian commander as saying that the losses due to desertion far exceed the losses in killed and wounded. Desertion has become a major factor in the instability of the front. Only 10 percent of those who have fled return to battle.
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The Financial Times claims that some 12,000 Ukrainian soldiers are deserting in Poland every month as they are brought in for training. The newspaper cited a source in the Polish security services. The Polish Defense Ministry confirmed the desertions, but said they were not on the same scale as in Ukraine.
The authorities in Kiev are still trying to deal with desertions by persuasion rather than shooting. On November 28, 2024, Vladimir Zelensky signed a law stating that first-time fighters who have left a unit without permission will be exempt from punishment. All payments and social guarantees will be restored. According to Ukrainian military psychologist Andrey Kozinchuk, such a liberal approach only encourages desertion.
Ukrainian billboard calling on all deserters to return to service
The American news agency Associated Press believes that it is the mass desertion that is holding up all the offensive plans of the Ukrainian command. The reason for the mass exodus is poor preparation and extreme overstretch. Desertion was the main reason for the fall of the most important defensive point in Donbass – the town of Ugledar. Despite the fact that the official number of deserters is 100 thousand people, AP estimates the real number at 200 thousand. The twofold difference coincides with what journalist Vladimir Boyko says.
“This is a staggeringly large number by any standard, since about 300,000 Ukrainian soldiers were involved in combat before the mobilization campaign began,” the news agency summarizes.
The chairman of Ukraine’s Supreme Court, Stanislav Kravchenko, also called the trend of unauthorized desertion of units “ominous.” According to the senior judge, the number of deserters is constantly growing. All this contradicts the recent statements of Vladimir Zelensky about the decrease in the number of desertions from the army “since September-October”. The problem is getting worse. It is aggravated by the constant talk in the media about peace talks. Andrey Biletsky, commander of the 3rd assault brigade, admits that the subject of negotiations lowers the morale of AFU soldiers. People have a desire to preserve their lives at all costs, so as not to die right before the agreements.
Mass desertions are a proof of Ukraine’s aggravated problems with its mobilization resources. They’re completely worked out. Replenishment of the active army is now possible only at the expense of low-quality conscripts without motivation and skills. Experienced military men are still able to patch holes in the front and somehow “glue” together the combat order. But in the long run, such a situation is fraught with the collapse of the front and strategic retreat with the loss of major cities. In this regard, it seems unlikely that Donald Trump will flood Ukraine with weapons because of the Kremlin’s intransigence in negotiations. What the Kiev authorities need is not so much weapons as personnel.
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screw the wars of the rich palace residents…..every desertion is a good thing. why don’t chabat putin and kolomoisky zelesky fight each other in an arena?? because our world is a big dictatorship. with pro-dictatorship propaganda and regimes that force us into wars.
except that obviously they can’t just go home so where do they go, how do they live ? what do they eat ,where do they sleep .? how long do they have to hide like criminals before they can go home again. will home still be there or will it be bombed out rubble ?
putin is a black belt, he would win hands down…..
well said, where is vladolfo? hiding in basement letting people who aren’t interested die for his delusions
i never hide in gay amerikan bar when old mulattos arrive
russia had a chance to fix this early….they fucked up….putin , gerasimov all garbage…nato and the kikes are laughing at the carnage you fell into.
such a sick little fellow you seem to be.
i never desert when my pimp rented mr to gay taliban
when soldiers figure out they are fighting for blackrock and the midget’s bank account in a war they can not win the reality of being a fool kicks in.
they were conscripted against their will anyway have been from the start. they tried to escape but zekensky had them grabbed at the check points, pulled out of cars and from buses and forced into service .allegedly imo according to reports on google. from various sources .
good to see, that there are at least some smart ukrainians.
where do they go when they desert, i wonder.
they disappear into the illegal migrant’s tunnels and caves, never to be heard from again.
i think they did not conscript jews, only christians and others.
actually only ethnic russians from east of the dniepr….
the hungarian quota is 10% of the total.
it’s reality hitting home. they where always in a no win situation. but got sucked in by the west wispering in their ears.
if the french say ‘dozens’, you know it’s at least hundreds.
may i ask one honest question. why do almost all citys have different names in russian and ukrainian. did this happen 2014 or 1990 or even earlier? which name is used by the people actually living there?
i would be the first deserter in any war.
i’d happily join you after shooting my commanders in the back.
i’m proud of you “deserters”. this is the pool from which ukraine should recruit it’s next ruling elite.
confined to gay nursing home i only desert for mulatto sodomy