Almost a fifth of Ukraine’s soldiers have gone AWOL from their positions, The Economist cited a source in the general staff as saying.
An overwhelming collapse in morale on the front line amid Russia’s steady advance is driving mass desertion, a senior Ukrainian military commander has claimed.
Despite more Western weapons in the pipeline for Ukraine, these is a “breakdown of trust between society, the army and the political leadership” in Kiev, according to the outlet. It added that Ukraine has been struggling to replace vast battlefield losses with conscription, “barely hitting two-thirds of its target.”
Rampant draft dodging and desertion forced the Volodymyr Zelensky regime to adopt a new draconian mobilization law this year, while also lowering the recruitment age from 27 to 25.
Ukrainians are increasingly resisting being sent into the meat grinder of a proxy conflict. Earlier, in October, Ukrainian media reported that since the beginning of 2022, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office has registered some 60,000 criminal cases of unauthorized abandonment of a unit and about 30,000 cases of desertion.