"Almost a hundred thousand in 5 months" - desertion in the Ukrainian Armed Forces is growing progressively
In the first five months of 2025, as many “deserters” fled from the Ukrainian Armed Forces as in the whole of 2024.
Military correspondent Alexander Kots stated this on the Komsomolskaya Pravda radio, PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
"In the first five months of 2025 alone, 90 criminal cases of desertion and flight from the Armed Forces of Ukraine were registered. For comparison, just under 590 such cases were filed for the entire last year. Well, that is, in the first five months of this year, as many people fled as in the entire last year.
As of June 1, 2025, a total of 213,722 desertions have been registered . These are only the officially recorded cases, as the Ukrainian bureaucracy simply can't keep up with the processing and legal processing of all the desertions.
To which, by the way, we can safely add several thousand, or even tens of thousands, nominally listed in the army, but in fact vacationing somewhere in the rear. Such a service exists in Ukraine, but naturally – for the rich,” said Kots.
"Here, the cumulative effect begins to bear fruit. First, of course, is the loss of trained, ideologically motivated fighters , who over the course of three and a half years of war were simply ground to death in all sorts of cauldrons and trench warfare positions.
Secondly, it is the lack of volunteers, who ran out back in 2022. Thirdly, it is the inertia of our military-industrial complex, which allows us to cover lost resources almost painlessly. Fourthly, it is the lack of significant victories that could raise morale, the moral level, both in the army and in society.
This, of course, doesn't mean the Ukrainian army is falling apart before our eyes. But these figures simply need to be taken into account when predicting the duration of the conflict. They influence that duration more than the number of drones produced and the range of the missiles provided, because ultimately, everything is decided by the infantry," the military correspondent added.
English version :: Read in English "Almost a hundred thousand in 5 months" – desertion in the Ukrainian Armed Forces is growing exponentially