Alarm in Ukraine over increasing number of deserters | International

In May 2023, Kiril Babii was convinced that he would fight until Crimea, his homeland, was liberated from Russian occupation. Babii was a lieutenant in the 43rd Ukrainian Artillery Brigade. He volunteered at the start of the invasion in February 2022, giving up his dream of becoming an architect, as he explained in an interview with EL PAÍS. But at the end of 2023, something broke inside him. “A month ago I wondered: ‘What if the war lasts five years, Kiril?’ And I started to cry. I don’t want to spend another three years in the war. I am exhausted,” Babii wrote on Instagram in November 2023.

Babii also said that on February 27, 2024, when his two years of service were over, he would leave his regiment via “voluntary demobilization,” or SZCH as it is called in Ukrainian military jargon. It was the last message he posted. Babii fled and is now missing. He is one of 45,543 soldiers who deserted from the Ukrainian army between January and August 2024, according to prosecutorial data leaked to the Ukrainian press. This accounts for more than half of the 81,167 cases registered by the Public Prosecution Service since 2022. Military personnel consulted by media such as Hromadske or L.B claiming the number is at least 100,000; the equivalent of 10% of all personnel currently serving in the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

A case identical to Babii’s has created a national sensation and led to the issue being covered for the first time in many Ukrainian media. Serhii Gnezdilov, a soldier of the 56th Motorized Infantry Brigade, announced on his social networks that he would give up military service until it was specified how long he would continue to serve in the war. Gnezdilov added that he was also fed up with the corruption that allows someone to avoid being drafted in exchange for enough cash. The Security Services of Ukraine (SSU) arrested him on October 9. He is accused of shirking his responsibilities under martial law.

The Ukrainian authorities distinguish between voluntary demobilization and desertion: the former represents the majority – 66% – of the total. These are soldiers who do not return to their regiment after being granted leave, claiming personal obligations, negligence in their unit or alleged inaccuracies in their recruitment documents to refuse to rejoin the ranks for a period of time. Deserters are those who disappear permanently and without explanation. In both cases it is a crime, punishable by prison sentences of five to ten years. But the problem is so widespread that on August 20 the Ukrainian parliament approved a new law allowing soldiers who went to the SZCH to return to the army without punishment after an initial warning. “The situation is very difficult; we can’t pretend it’s not happening. That is why we have been talking about it for a long time in our meetings with the General Staff and the Ministry of Defense,” MP Fedir Venislavskyi admitted on NV radio on Sunday.

Last April, EL PAÍS spoke to an officer who left his brigade as a ‘voluntarily demobilized soldier’. He is now at home and has no intention of returning to the front. He pleads negligence on the part of his commanders. He claims he has fought in the current war for more than two years, as well as the 2014 Donbas conflict against pro-Russian separatists, and deserves to return to civilian life.

Why are there so few arrests among SZCH and deserters? Andriy Pisarenko, a lawyer and commander of a mortar unit in the Da Vinci Battalion, said the main reason is that the SSU does not have enough material resources to handle so many cases. Pisarenko assumes that there are many more refugees than the official figures indicate, but that some commanders prefer not to report this, to avoid problems or out of camaraderie. Diana Makarova, a well-known volunteer for the Armed Forces of Ukraine since the Donbas conflict broke out in 2014, noted on Facebook on September 23 that there are already so many refugees that it is difficult for the government to address the issue without running risks . a crisis. “Mass desertions have begun and will only increase, and the more deserters there are, the harder it is to punish,” Makarova wrote.

“You go to the army to fight for freedom and what you discover is that you are deprived of your freedom indefinitely; you don’t know when it will end,” explained a deserter consulted by this newspaper in April who prefers to remain anonymous to avoid arrest. It is the same thing Babii wrote in his farewell message: “I ask for changes to transform the military from an institution that is the same as a prison, to an institution that properly defends the state in a prolonged war.” Igor Lutsenko, commander of a drone unit in Hromadske, echoes these sentiments: “The army must stop being a prison for heroes.”

Discomfort with the mobilization law

Lutsenko confirmed that the situation is extremely complex, because although civilians who have been in the army since the beginning of the war want to resume their lives, virtually no one wants to enlist today, and those who arrive at their units are demotivated by the poor prospects. for success on the battlefield. Unrest in the Ukrainian military increased in April 2024, when the new mobilization law was passed. Hundreds of thousands of 2022 volunteer fighters expected that the law would send them home after three years of service – that is, in 2025 – but both the government and the General Staff ruled out demobilization because the country cannot afford to lose soldiers, let experience standing.

An officer of a brigade fighting on the Zaporizhia Front, who was allowed to visit his family abroad this summer, explained to EL PAÍS in September that Ukrainian customs officials told him when he crossed the border that they were assuming that he would not return. He did so, but he cited his own experience as an example of the shortage of experienced soldiers: of the troops his battalion had in the summer of 2022, only 5% are active today. The rest were discharged due to injuries or deaths.

Not only does the Kremlin have a larger population from which to expand its military, it also has more drastic methods to recruit its troops and, above all, discourage them from deserting. Testimonies from Russian soldiers and videos recorded by Ukrainian drones at the front prove that summary executions are common for those who abandon their posts.

In addition to the exhaustion of these Ukrainian citizens who have signed up to defend their country, there is also a lack of training and sufficient weapons to resist the current Russian advance. One hundred soldiers of the 123rd Brigade of the Territorial Defense Forces made headlines when they left their posts on the Donetsk front en masse on October 3 to protest the lack of training of new recruits and especially the lack of ammunition and military equipment. means to confront the enemy. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky took this lack of motivation into account when he presented his plan for victory during trips to the United States and Europe, stating that the war could be over by 2025.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition