The survivors of his group were one day ordered to counterattack. Certain death seemed to await him. It was too much for this 45-year-old man, who was fighting in the Lugansk region. As soon as he had the chance to escape and save his skin, he took it. “We wanted to live. We had no military experience, we were ordinary people, workers, coming from villages. » In a soft voice, he confides in AFP without giving his last name.
Weakened army. His case is just one of thousands in a weakened Ukrainian army that has lost at least 43,000 soldiers killed in combat and likely tens of thousands more currently considered missing. since the start of the Russian invasion in February 2022. It is struggling to replace these losses in the face of Russian troops who have the advantage of numbers and are gaining ground at the cost of very deadly assaults.
According to the Ukrainian prosecutor's office, since 2022, at least 90,000 cases have been opened for desertion or absence without authorization, with a sharp increase in cases in 2024. In September, a 24-year-old soldier, Serguiï Gnezdilov, broke a taboo by announcing publicly, on social networks, that he left his unit without permission. After serving in the army for five years, he claimed to be protesting against the fact that the mobilization of Ukrainian soldiers, in the midst of war, is currently of indefinite duration. The Ukrainian Bureau of Investigation, a judicial body, described his behavior as “immoral” and benefiting Russia. He has since been arrested and now faces 12 years in prison.
Concussions. Oleksandr says he has largely forgotten the year following his flight and which he spent in his region of Lviv (west). An amnesia caused, according to him, by the concussions he suffered due to the bombings. He remembers having “mostly drank” to forget the horror, while experiencing a growing sense of guilt. In the end, despite the pleas of those close to him, he decided to return to fight after seeing young people enlist and other soldiers returning to the front after being injured. His sister, he said, told him that he was going to be killed and that she would rather “bring him food in prison than flowers on his grave.” Their brother is already dead after being beaten in 2013 during the pro-European uprising on Maidan Square in kyiv.
It was also guilt that pushed the soldier with the nom de guerre Boutch to return to fight. This 29-year-old man says he deserted after being injured during the fighting for the liberation of the city of Kherson by the Ukrainian army at the end of 2022. “Being constantly under bombardment damages your mental state. You're going crazy, little by little. You are under constant stress, enormous stress,” he said to justify his desertion. Faced with a shortage of soldiers, the Ukrainian authorities showed a certain leniency towards deserters. Parliament passed a law in August which exempts from legal proceedings those who have returned to their units, provided that they have not previously been convicted for this reason.
Mud, cold and hunger. The Ukrainian army's 47th and 53rd brigades announced in December that they would reinstate soldiers who left the front without permission. “We all make mistakes,” their ad said. Prosecutors said that in November alone, 8,000 soldiers who deserted or left their units without authorization returned to the army. But according to Siver, commander of the 1st Separate Assault Battalion, known as Da Vinci, the number of soldiers abandoning their units is increasing because many of the most motivated troops are already dead or injured. “Few people are made for war,” Siver, who also only gives his code name, told AFP. “There are more and more people who are forced” to join the army, he adds.
Several soldiers, however, told AFP that improvements in the training and supervision of the army could help reduce desertions. Ex-deserter Boutch explains that, thanks to the attitude of his current superiors, his combat ability and physical condition have improved since his first illness, marked by the behavior of certain officers who, according to him, did not treat their soldiers “like human beings”. Commander Siver suggests better psychological support to prepare troops who may spend “weeks” in the trenches “in the mud, cold and hunger.” But Siver does not see a miracle solution to reduce desertions, which will undoubtedly multiply as the fighting continues. Although yes, he says, there is indeed one: “We just have to end the war. »
Jonathan BROWN
© Agence France-Presse
