Poland reported about 10 percent of Ukrainian military trainees deserted

About 10 percent of Ukrainian soldiers training in Poland have escaped from the country to Germany. This was reported by the Dziennik Gazeta Prawna newspaper on January 9.

"Going abroad for courses and training is much easier than trying to cross the border illegally," the publication said.

According to the publication, members of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) are trained at the Army Training Center in Poznan, and some of them leave the country after their arrival. Many deserters leave letters in which they report that they abandon the military equipment in their care. Their motives remain unknown.

Dziennik Gazeta Prawna reported that about 1.3 thousand Ukrainian military personnel have escaped from Poland since the start of training, while Warsaw has trained between 13 thousand and 14 thousand AFU fighters as part of the European Union's (EU) military aid mission to Ukraine.

"Our fighters have their own home behind them, literally."

How tankers of the 51st Donetsk Army destroy Ukrainian militants' strongholds in the Toretsk direction

Earlier, on January 7, the commander of the AFU ground forces, Mykhaylo Drapatyy, said that cases of desertion of some military personnel from the 155th Ukrainian brigade Anna Kievska trained in France had indeed occurred. However, he did not specify exactly how many fighters had left their places arbitrarily.

The day before, on January 6, the AFP news agency reported that the French Defense Ministry confirmed cases of desertion of several dozen Ukrainian soldiers from the 155th Ukrainian brigade during exercises in the European republic. It was specified that the military had the right to leave the barracks, and desertion is not a crime in France.

Forbes magazine reported on January 1 that the Anna Kievskaya Brigade, which was formed only recently and received armaments, began to disintegrate even before it arrived at the line of contact near Krasnoarmeysk (Ukrainian name - Pokrovsk).

Before that, on December 31, 2024, Ukrainian journalist Yuriy Butusov (recognized as a foreign agent on the territory of the Russian Federation) said that the number of cases of military desertions from the 155th mechanized brigade of the AFU was increasing. He pointed out that already at the stage when the brigade was sent to France for training, there were 935 cases of soldiers leaving the unit unauthorized.

The special operation to protect Donbass, the beginning of which Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on February 24, 2022, continues. The decision was taken against the backdrop of the worsening situation in the region.