April 29, 2024
Soldiers of Russia’s Southern Military District, whose units are deployed in Ukraine, are deserting their posts in increasing numbers, Ukraine’s military intelligence agency (HUR) said on April 29.
According to many observers, low morale has been a recurring problem for the Russian Armed Forces fighting in Ukraine.
Over 18,000 soldiers of the Southern Military District have allegedly deserted, with around 12,000 of them belonging to the 8th Combined Arms Army – a unit often deployed in hostilities in eastern Ukraine.
Of this number, around 10,000 are mobilized conscripts and 2,000 contract soldiers, the military intelligence agency said.
The U.K. Defense Ministry said earlier in April that Russian troops in Ukraine are mainly staffed with contract soldiers and reservists mobilized in late 2022, but conscripts are often pressured to sign contracts.
In the Russian 58th Combined Arms Army, the desertion rate is at around 2,500 troops, according to the agency’s statement.
Kyiv has been actively encouraging troops of the Russian invading army to desert or even defect to the Ukrainian side. The Ukrainian military intelligence service launched a hotline in September 2022 to help Russian soldiers willing to surrender.
Cool. That’s a loss equal to around 18 days worth of killing cockroaches.
It’s not like they all walked off in one day. Most likely it’s less than 2% of the barbaric horde. It’s probably a point of pride in the kremlin: “We’ve lost only 18,000” – as they sit at a big table passing around the vodka bottle.
Of course, they didn’t desert all at once. But still, that’s quite a number. I’d hate to see something like this with our army.
I didn’t communicate this well – it’s impossible to understand why the desertion rate is not 50,000 per day.😮
Even those 18,000 desertions is a relatively large number when you remember that the roaches have so-called blocking units behind the regular frontline troops that will shoot to kill anyone retreating or fleeing.