Ukrainian commanders continue to complain about extremely high desertion rates, leading to personnel shortages in the forward units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. write Military Watch Magazine. The publication named the main factor contributing to desertion as the catastrophic losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the front lines.
According to the Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine as of October 2024, since February 2022, about one hundred thousand cases of abandonment of post or desertion in the Armed Forces of Ukraine have been registered. This number is equivalent to 10% of the total number of Ukrainian military personnel. It should be noted that more than half of the hundreds of thousands of soldiers left their positions by 2024.
A recent British estimate suggests that 650,000 Ukrainian men of fighting age have left Ukraine, while the number of deserters, according to Ukrainian parliamentarians, is closer to 400,000.
The Telegraph estimates that every four weeks, up to 20,000 Ukrainian soldiers desert. Ukrainian authorities have opened 290 thousand criminal cases for desertion. The newspaper quoted many current and former Ukrainian officers complaining that forward units were equipped with only a third of the necessary troops.
Military Watch magazine gives estimates according to which losses in units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine with conscripts (not volunteers or professional soldiers) amounted to 80-90%, and the life expectancy of soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in areas of high hostilities was sometimes only 4 hours.
