Jul 29, 2024

Russian sources have reported a number of Russia’s soldiers leaving their posts in recent weeks, as heavy fighting rages on in Ukraine and casualty counts mount.

Reports circulated in recent weeks by Russian independent media, and news sources purporting to have links with Moscow authorities, indicate that there have been at least a dozen cases of soldiers abandoning their positions or escaping from military training grounds.

Among the cases are nine prisoners who had reportedly signed contracts with Russia’s Ministry of Defense, but escaped from a training ground in the border Belgorod region last week, Russian outlets reported.

Separately, a Russian commander, named as Yevgeny Zarubin in Russian reports, is “wanted for unauthorized abandonment” of his unit, which had been fighting around the northeastern Ukrainian town of Vovchansk, Russian independent outlet Astra reported on Sunday.

The border town, a handful of miles from the Belgorod region, has seen intense clashes since Moscow launched an offensive on the northeastern Ukrainian Kharkiv region in early May.

Ukrainian media had shared footage appearing to show Zarubin visibly upset after leading an assault on Vovchansk. Newsweek could not independently verify the clip.

Russian Telegram channels also said this month that a Russian soldier had been sentenced to 10 years in a maximum-security facility after deserting the armed forces and being involved in an altercation that led to the death of a woman. In a separate incident, a Russian soldier reportedly shot two other Russian soldiers before leaving his post.

Newsweek could not independently verify these claims.

Desertion has plagued Russia’s troops battling in Ukraine since the early months of the war.

Ukraine, too, is known to have wrestled with desertion as the war rumbles on with no end in sight. However, Russia’s casualty-heavy tactics have drawn particular attention to morale among Moscow’s ranks.

In November 2022, the British Defense Ministry said Moscow’s generals may have sanctioned the use of weapons against deserters, “including possibly authorizing shooting to kill such defaulters after a warning had been given.”

In mid-June 2024, Russian independent outlet Mediazona reported that more than 10,000 Russian fighters have been accused of refusing to serve since February 2022. The majority were accused of abandoning their unit without authorization, and 339 faced accusations of desertion, the outlet reported.

In late April 2024, Ukraine’s GUR military intelligence agency said desertion was flourishing in the forces falling under Russia’s southern military district, which covers southwestern Russian regions.

More than 18,000 Russian soldiers have “left the service in the combat units of the district without permission,” the GUR said at the time. Approximately 12,000 of these fighters were part of the 8th Combined Arms Army, which is “constantly involved in hostilities in eastern Ukraine,” the agency added.

Most of these soldiers were mobilized by Moscow, the GUR said. A further 2,500 soldiers from the 58th Combined Arms Army had deserted, according to the military intelligence agency. Newsweek could not independently verify these figures.

Separately, in March, Mediazona reported that almost 700 sentences were handed down in March alone for “absence without leave.”

The number of causes brought for “absence without leave” spiked after the Kremlin announced its partial mobilization in September 2022, but the “growth in 2024 is unprecedented,” the outlet reported.

In early January 2024, the head of the Get Lost project, a Russian anti-war group offering resources to help Russian evade conscription, told Europe-based independent Russian outlet Novaya Gazeta that, by October 2023, almost one in every five people contacting the project was interested in deserting.

Private military companies, often referred to by the West as mercenary organizations, and “Storm-Z” units—described as punishment or penal formations—have the highest levels of desertion, Russian independent outlet The Insider reported in late May. Moscow has relied on these fighters for some of the bloodiest fighting in the most intense areas of the front lines in Ukraine.

https://www.newsweek.com/russia-army-ukraine-desertions-unauthorized-absence-1931352