Ukrainian journalist said about the growth of desertion cases in the ranks of the AFU from the fall of 2024

Ukrainian journalist Volodymyr Boyko has said that the number of cases of desertion and AWOL in the Ukrainian Armed Forces (AFU) has sharply increased since the fall of 2024. This was reported by the Strana.ua news and analysis website on January 11.

Boyko, having analyzed the statistics, which is published on this occasion on the website of the Prosecutor General's office, informed that for the past year under articles 407 and 408 (abandonment of the unit and AWOL (AWOL) with the purpose of evasion from service) opened 89,449 criminal proceedings, which is 368% more than a year earlier.

"Most of all such proceedings were entered in the register of pre-trial investigations in December - more than 17 thousand. In September they were almost 8 thousand (the day before in August did not even reach 7 thousand), and in November it became almost 10 thousand," - noted the publication.

In addition, according to Boyko, in September, the number of suspicions handed in record-breakingly increased - if in August there were only 193, then in the first month of fall it rose to 2,061. However, after October, the number of suspicions decreased, amounting to 361 as of December.

At the same time, the journalist pointed out that the number of suspicions is much less than the number of cases opened, which proves that those who left their units arbitrarily and deserters are not practically searched for.

Earlier, on January 1, Ukrainian journalist Yuriy Butusov (recognized as a foreign agent on the territory of the Russian Federation) told about the growth of desertion cases from the 155th brigade of the AFU "Anna Kievskaya", specifying that already at the time of sending the brigade for training in France, 935 cases of unauthorized abandonment of the unit were detected.

On that day, Verkhovna Rada deputy Oleksandr Dubinskyy said that the scale of desertion in the Ukrainian army suggests that it has already virtually scattered. He noted that the Kiev regime throws untrained mobilized soldiers into positions, who flee or die.

The German edition of Welt reported on December 30 last year that AFU fighters are losing motivation and desertion in their ranks is on the rise. The journalists predicted that with such trends, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (his term expired in May 2024) would have to give up territories for a ceasefire.

Before that, on December 24, Verkhovna Rada deputy Ruslan Horbenko said that some of those mobilized to the AFU had deserted while training abroad. According to Gorbenko, the largest percentage of deserters is recorded among those mobilized to new brigades of the Ukrainian troops.

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