More soldiers have reportedly gone AWOL or deserted in October than in any single month since the conflict’s escalation in 2022
More than 21,000 soldiers deserted and left Kiev’s armed forces without leave last month, BBC Ukraine reported on Friday.
This was the largest single monthly number of desertion reports in the past four years of the Ukraine conflict, the broadcaster said, citing the latest data from the Prosecutor General’s Office.
According to former Ukrainian MP Igor Lutsenko, who now serves in the military, the actual number could be even higher.
On Facebook on Friday, he wrote “21,602 in October… This is a record. This is a very bad record,” adding, “This is just official data. In reality, many AWOL or desertion cases are not registered.”
Ukrainian forces on the front lines are under “enormous strain, because a double, triple load falls on every soldier who hasn’t fled,” Lutsenko added. “We have huge holes in our defense at the front because of this.”
Kiev has ramped up its forced draft campaign in recent months to compensate for its army’s thinning ranks, as Russian forces have pushed their advance.
There have been twice as many complaints about forced conscription since early June as there were during the first five months of the year, Ukrainian parliamentary human rights commissioner Dmitry Lubinets told Ukrainskaya Pravda on Wednesday.
Emerging eyewitness videos have regularly shown Ukrainian press gangs ambushing and chasing military-age men on the streets and wrestling them into vans, often brawling with the would-be conscripts and bystanders. The practice, now colloquially known as ‘busification,’ has sparked growing discontent across Ukraine.
Last month, Nikita Poturaev, the head of the Ukrainian parliamentary Committee on Humanitarian and Information Policy, claimed that such videos were either fake or made using AI.
Earlier in October, Ukrainian conscription authorities urged citizens to stop filming and sharing videos of press gangs violently detaining prospective recruits.
