Ukrainian soldiers hold a national flag over the coffin of Pavlo Vedybida, callsign 'Obolonchyk', a Ukrainian serviceman and ultras member of Football Club Obolon Kyiv, who was killed in the battle near the town of Chasiv Yar, Donetsk region, during the funeral ceremony at Independence Square in Kyiv on November 30, 2024. AFP file photo used for illustrative purposes only.
As Ukraine's military grapples with a shortage of troops, especially infantry, to counter Russia's larger army, some units are offering a second chance to those who have deserted their posts. Data from the prosecutor's office reveals that nearly 95,000 criminal cases have been filed since 2022 against soldiers for going 'absent without leave' (AWOL) and for desertion. The number of cases has surged significantly with each passing year of the war, with almost two-thirds of the total coming from 2024. With tens of thousands of troops killed or injured, Ukraine can scarcely afford this depletion. Now, some units are bolstering their ranks by accepting soldiers previously declared AWOL.
One such unit is Ukraine's elite 47th Brigade, which recently posted on social media inviting soldiers who had deserted to rejoin. 'Our goal is to provide every soldier with the chance to return and fulfill his potential,' the post stated. Within the first two days, the brigade received over a hundred applications. 'There was a flood of applications; so many that we still haven't been able to process them all before new ones arrive,' said Viacheslav Smirnov, the 47th's head of recruitment, two weeks after the announcement.
Two military units Reuters spoke to mentioned they were only recruiting soldiers who had gone AWOL from their bases, rather than those who had deserted from combat. The former is viewed as a less severe offense within the Ukrainian military. A recent law has effectively decriminalized a soldier's first disappearance, allowing them to return to service. Colonel Oleksandr Hrynchuk, deputy head of Ukraine's military police, reported that 6,000 AWOL soldiers had returned to service in the last month, including 3,000 within 72 hours of the law being signed.
Mykhailo Perets, an officer from the K-2 battalion of Ukraine's 54th Brigade, said his battalion had already enlisted over 30 men who had gone AWOL from other units. 'The reasons for absconding vary: for some, the transition from civilian life was too harsh, while others served as qualified pilots for a year or two before being sent to the front line due to insufficient infantry,' Perets explained. Those who applied also included men who had become exhausted and fled after seven or eight years of war, having fought Russian-backed forces in eastern Ukraine before 2022.
Gil Barndollar, a non-resident fellow at the U.S.-based Defense Priorities think tank, attributed the rise in unauthorized absences to exhaustion. Ukrainian service personnel have previously highlighted the lack of replacements for lost soldiers, which puts unbearable strain on those remaining, both physically and mentally. Barndollar also pointed to the average age of the soldiers as an additional strain. 'An army composed of men, often in poor health, in their 40s, is going to become exhausted sooner and face morale issues faster than a reasonably fit army of 20- or 25-year-olds,' he noted.
President Zelenskiy has countered concerns about the manpower issue by arguing that Ukraine lacks weapons rather than people, and has resisted U.S. pressure to lower the minimum draft age from 25 to 18. In an interview with Sky News last week, he stated that Kyiv's allies had only been able to provide the necessary equipment for a quarter of the 10 new brigades Ukraine had formed over the past year.
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