Ukrainain Army Suffering 40,000+ Desertions Per Month: Frontlines Severely Undermanned

Ukrainain commanders have continued to lament the extreme desertion rates that are contributing to fuelling personnel shortages in frontline units, as extreme casualty rates have led conscripts to resort to often extreme measures to avoid combat. A recent British assessment has estimated that 650,000 Ukrainian men of fighting age have fled Ukraine, while the number of deserters, according to Ukrainian MP Anna Skorokhod, has reached almost 400,000. Drawing attention to the issue, commander of the elite 108th Separate Assault Battalion Sergey Filimonov recently questioned followers on X how surprised “would you be if I told you that another newly formed brigade is being put together from the ranks of the 150th? Which, at the stage of formation, already has about 3,000 AWOL [absent without official leave]?” Desertion rates have continued to rise during the war, with a Financial Times investigation in December 2024 finding that rates that year were twice as high as the two previous years.

A recent assessment by the London-based Telegraph concluded that “perhaps as many as 20,000 [Ukrainian service members] desert or go absent every four weeks,” with the Ukrainain government having launched 290,000 criminal cases for desertion, while the armed forces may now be over 200,000 personnel short of the minimum needed to hold the line against Russian advances. The paper cited multiple current and former Ukrainian officers lamenting that frontline units are now operating at between half and one third third of their required strength. This corroborates with prior statements by both Russian and Ukrainain sources regarding an extreme personnel crisis. Former chief of staff of the 12th Brigade of the Ukrainian National Guard Bogdan Krotevich, for one, lamented in late August thatbrigades on frontline were staffed at just 30 percent and were barely combat-ready. Russian President Vladimir Putin days later on September 4 stated that combat-ready units in the Ukrainian Armed Forces are staffed no more than 47-48 percent.

Stressing the seriousness of the situation, Krotevich observed: “The brigades on the frontlines are operating at only 30% of their standard strength. According to regulations, they are generally incapable of sustained combat. Yet, they are repeatedly ordered to attack, regain tactical positions, and hold ground. They can’t even defend themselves effectively.” He added that forces the Ukrainian government refers to as “reserves” are units reassigned from one sector to another, rather than fresh, fully equipped new units. Regarding the possibility of further mobilisation addressing the issue, he added: “Even if, hypothetically, 100,000 servicemen were mobilised tomorrow, they would undergo a month-long basic training and then be thrown into the frontlines. This would only temporarily alter the situation for a couple of weeks before everything reverts to its previous state.” Krotevich previously in early August detailed an increasingly catastrophic situation facing Ukrainain forces in the disputed Donbas regions.

A primary driver of both desertion rates and of personnel shortages has been the extreme casualty rates suffered by frontline units, which in conscript units has at times approached 80-90 percent, with life expectancy on high intensity frontiers has at times being as low as four hours. The Ukrainian Army’s practice of recruiting poor men from villages and sending them to the frontlines with just two days of training, as confirmed by the Wall Street Journal among other sources, has been a leading contributor to this. As early as April 2023 Ukrainian ambassador to the United Kingdom Vadim Pristaiko stated that the Ukrainain government was concealing the full number of casualties, noting that although “it has been our policy from the start not to discuss our losses,” “when the war is over, we will acknowledge this. I think it will be a horrible number.” Lake documents in August confirmed that military casualties had exceeded 1.7 million personnel.