Ukrainian Army Desertion Rates Surge Amid Catastrophic Personnel Losses: Most Conscripts Just Trying to Escape

<p >The Ukrainian Army is suffering from a surge in desertion rates, with the <a href=" target="_blank">extremely high casualties </a>and very low life expectancy for personnel providing a growing incentive for new conscripts to seek to escape military service. A recent assessment by the Financial Times found than twice as many Ukrainian soldiers were charged with desertion in 2024 compared to the already high rates seen in the two preceding years, limiting the country’s ability to replenish its ranks. 60,000 cases against deserters were opened from January to October. Analysts have noted that an important contributing factor has been the lack of provisions for demobilisation even for the country’s longest serving conscripts, leaving personnel exhausted and denying them the usual four-week rotations off the front lines for rest and retraining. As one officer informed the Times: “They’re just killing them, instead of letting them rehabilitate and rest,” with those killed being replaced by draftees with substandard training.</p><p ><img src=" title="Russian Thermobaric Bombardment in Ukraine and TOS-1A Rocket Launcher"></p><p >The report was published days after a statement by a Ukrainian member of parliament that as many as 200,000 personnel may have deserted since February 2022. Footage of increasingly extreme methods used both by conscription officers to recruit new personnel, and by draftees to escape the front lines, have circulated increasingly widely on the Internet from late 2023, with draft dodgers interviewed citing the extreme casualty rates on the front lines and the lack of preparation that personnel received as reasons for their actions. “Men who are the right age for the military draft are scared to walk freely in the street,” one draft-dodger informed The Telegraph in late November, with recruiters referring to approaching potential draftees as “like dealing with a cornered rat.” The magnitude of Ukrainian losses was a factor in the projections of Russian intelligence that Kiev’s supporters in the Western world were increasingly seriously considering extreme measures, including large scale ground force deployments, to reverse the tide of the war.</p><p ><img src=" title="Ukrainian Army Personnel"></p><p >Highlighting the extent of the issue, officers informed CNN that most the majority of conscripted personnel were trying to escape. "They go to their positions once, and if they survive, they never come back. They either abandon their positions, or refuse to go into battle, or try to find a way to leave the army," one officer stated. Ukrainian commanders previously informed the Financial Times that conscripts on some areas of the front suffered 50 to 70 percent casualty rates within days of their first rotations. “When the new guys get to the position, a lot of them run away at the first shell explosion,” one deputy commander fighting near Ugledar in the disputed Donetsk region stated. </p><p >Another commander, whose unit was attempting to hold the nearby town of Khurakove, reported: “some guys freeze [because] they are too afraid to shoot the enemy, and then they are the ones who leave in body bags or severely wounded.” Experienced soldiers “are being killed off too quickly” and replaced by older and less fit men, another commander informed the Financial Times. “As infantry, you need to run, you need to be strong, you need to carry heavy equipment…It’s hard to do that if you aren’t young,” he elaborated. “Some of them don’t even know how to hold their rifles,” another officer recalled. The Times noted that remaining survivors would desert as soon as they could. Desertions were also common among personnel who were sent to NATO member states in Europe for training, where escape was seen to be easier than in Ukraine itself. </p><p ><img src=" title="Ukrainian Man Being Dragged Into Van For Conscription"></p><p >In April 2023 Ukrainian ambassador to the United Kingdom Vadim Pristaiko revealed that Kiev was concealing the full number of casualties suffered by the country in its ongoing war effort, stating that “it has been our policy from the start not to discuss our losses,” but that “when the war is over, we will acknowledge this. I think it will be a horrible number.” Western sources have since then continued to widely report on the extreme casualty rates suffered by Ukrainian conscript units and the lack of training they had.  The Wall Street Journal <a href=" >reported</a> in mid-2023 that the Ukrainian Army had been recruiting poor men from villages, furnishing them with Soviet-era rifles and uniforms, and after just two nights at a base sending them to the frontlines. Some of the conscripts sought to sign an official refusal on the basis that they didn’t have proper training, with one recalling that when he protested that he had never held a gun before, the Ukrainian sergeant major replied “Bakhmut will teach you” – a reference to the frontline city <a href=" >at the centre of the fighting</a> in the region. The Journal observed that conscripts referred to the frontlines in Bakhmut as “hell on earth.”</p><p >Former U.S. Marine Troy Offenbecker who fought in Bakhmut <a href=" >summarised</a> that Ukrainian and allied forces in Bakhmut faced: “a lot of casualties. The life expectancy is around four hours on the frontline." Clashes were ”chaotic" and were dubbed "the meat grinder” by the Ukrainians, he added, with Russian artillery strikes being “nonstop," while Western claims of Russian ammunition shortages appeared far removed from the reality on the ground. Prevailing reports indicate that conditions and life expectancy on high intensity frontiers have only deteriorated since then, with the <a href=" target="_blank">discrepancy in firepower </a>between Russian and Ukrainian forces having continued to grow significantly.  </p>