Catastrophe for somebody, salvation for others. Desertion is flooding Ukraine

The beginning of autumn was marked for Ukraine by a worsening situation on the front lines. Day by day, the defense in the Donetsk region is crumbling; in the Kharkov region, Russian troops are approaching the Oskol River; on the Kursk direction, they have also regained control of a number of settlements, although the Ukrainian army is still attacking in some places. The euphoria of victory has once again given way to frustration, and where there are defeats, there is increased pressure on internal "enemies of the people."

270 thousand units of weapons have been wanted in Ukraine since the beginning of the full-scale war until the beginning of this month, according to Opendatabot statistics published on September 12. There are all sorts of weapons, including machine guns and grenade launchers, but the most frequently lost or stolen ones are AK-74s and hunting rifles. The absolute leaders are Donetsk and Zaporozhye regions (52,628 and 31,984 pieces, respectively), the city of Kiev (27,159), and the top five is rounded out by Lugansk, Kharkov and Sumy regions (approximately 20 thousand each). These are decent numbers even by the standards of the epic year of 1918. That is, there are plenty of weapons, only new Makhnovists are missing, who are ready to ensure the safety of their streets and neighborhoods – it is better to sell it on the black market or simply hide. The infographic can be found here; it confirms what the Assembly reported in mid-summer about the availability of firearms (in Russian; in English.)

On September 11, a video statement by two-time Kharkov mayoral candidate Denis Yaroslavsky, who currently heads one of the reconnaissance units if the Armed Forces of Ukraine, became resonant in mass media and social networks: "If I tell you now the number of SZCh [Ukrainian abbreviation for unauthorized leaving of a military unit, in Russian – SOCh] as of today, all the Russian publics will turn on us and shout "look how many deserters they have". They don't show theirs, we can't show ours either. But I call this situation very deplorable. Now we already have a disease. I will not say that this is already the fourth stage, as in oncology, but it’s boldly the second, transitioning to the third. And progressive. From the very beginning, we did not have SZCh, because, for example, I served in a volunteer battalion for the first three months, we didn’t receive a salary, nothing, and there were tens of thousands of people like me. Because there was motivation. Motivation to win. Now the war has entered such a stage when everyone who doesn’t want to is drawn to the battlefield. Motivated people either died or got tired," he said about the release from criminal liability of fugitives who returned to the army.

On September 9, Kiev journalist Volodymyr Boiko, who serves in the 101st brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, stated even more sharply about this law on his Facebook page: "I have several times come across references to my modest person with information that the number of deserters in the Armed Forces and other armed formations is 200 thousand people. In fact, I said and say that the number of deserters has already exceeded 150 thousand persons and is approaching 200 thousand. With the current dynamics, it’s possible to predict 200 thousand deserters by December 2024. I also want to emphasize that the actual decriminalization of desertion will have catastrophic consequences for the front in the near future. Because this law is aimed not at those who have already arbitrarily left the military units (all the same, no one was looking for them all, and the criminal proceedings were not investigated before), but at those servicemen who faithfully performed their duty and who now learned with surprise, that you can lay down your arms, go home and there will be nothing for it. Today, crimes against the established order of military service are not investigated at all, deserters are not wanted – this is what led to the fact that the problem accumulated for 2.5 years and now the situation has reached a dead end. It’s impossible to bring such a large number of deserters to justice, and it’s impossible to find them. That’s why the head of state Andrii Yermak (may His name be sanctified!) decided that people should be captured on the streets and sent to the front instead of deserters. But this doesn’t help – after entering the military units, the mobilized simply return home. If anyone returns, it will be several people. First of all, it’s technically impossible – after registration of criminal proceedings, the deserter is excluded from the personnel lists and he can re-enter the service only through the TCR [territorial center for recruitment, i.e. enlistment office], through re-mobilization. Secondly, that wasn’t why the deserter left the unit and went home to return. Another thing is that mass desertion has now begun, as the people have seen that it’s possible to "get on skis" and there will be nothing for it." If this summer our magazine wrote [in Russian; in English] that this usually happens in the form of failure to return from the hospital or vacation, now soldiers already leave and disappear directly from their positions, even if there was no shelling. An instructor of the 59th motorized infantry brigade of the AFU, which is fighting near Pokrovsk, told about this in a Deutsche Welle video story from last week.

On September 15, one of the largest news channels in Ukraine also wrote about how the official statistics of military escapes are understated: "... Also, SZChs and refusers are removed from the staff. Went out arbitrarily, was absent from the unit for more than ten days. Or refused to go to the front. Most SZChs and refusers don’t have criminal cases opened against them, commanders don’t write reports. Since this spoils the overall statistics of the unit and calls into question the commander's competence to lead and maintain morale. Therefore, such a contingent is quietly removed from the staff. There’s another nuance. The thing is that if the sick, offenders or refusers aren’t removed from the staff, then according to the documents the unit doesn’t need to be replenished. And it’s considered combat-ready. But in reality the unit isn’t combat-ready. Since more than half of it consists of offenders or wounded. Offenders with drunkenness or fights, or drug addicts, can be kept out of staff for years – no one needs them in combat units. They also can’t be fired, so offenders can be kept in reserve companies as cheap labor for units. They are rarely allowed home, they are kept in the rear not far from the unit. There’s no security in the reserve companies for "outstaffers". If an "outstaffer" escapes from a reserve company – goes into repeated SZCh, then he’s first declared wanted. Then a criminal case is opened for desertion. People escape from reserve companies very often. But some of them are caught by the Military Law Enforcement Service and brought back after "re-education" at the commandant’s office," explained the AFU captain Bogdan D. to journalists.

On September 14, Lviv military serviceman Maxim Bugel wrote on Facebook how the unwillingness of our neighbors in the Sumy region (also bordering with the Kursk region of Russia) to provide housing led him to thoughts about desertion: "…There was hope that after the shelling started in Sumy and many people left, eventually they would need funds to rent housing in the places they moved to. But the planets didn’t align. An ОLХ announcement. There are a few houses, a few apartments, but there is a nuance – they are rented only for families with children, at most, with a small animal. Prices are reduced but the requirements for settlement are not. And today I also learned that in one of the apartment buildings, in the settlement where we are now, they were meeting and deciding whether to let the military into the building. They agreed – that we are unclean and have no place in their heavenly place. In the neighboring one, they decided to let us in. There is a desire to gather my Cossacks on their square and also hold at least a referendum on the topic "do we need to defend them" and if the decision is not in their favor – turn around and go home. It is interesting to look at their faces in this case. What will be more: fear or joy that a brotherly people will come to them." As we noted in the material about this tendency, the author also missed the fact that the first Cossacks were fleeing serfdom instead of fighting for it. Earlier this month, a famous right-wing activist was indignant that residents of a high-rise building in Kharkov want to evict his volunteer warehouse in order to avoid missile arrival.

The article "In the long hot summer, Ukrainian and Russian soldiers broke records for the growth of desertions", which was published by us on the first day of autumn, turned out to be just in time. (It is available in Russian, in English, in Spanish, in Italian.) A number of feedbacks came from both sides of the front. From discussions in local chats of Kharkov:

"I have a small observation, several busified ones, who haven’t been very critical of the authorities all this time, now quite console themselves with the thought that those at the top know better. While you are "free", your thoughts are within the framework of social currents and have the opportunity to wag. As soon as you get into a collective with outlined tasks, in most cases, your thoughts are in the same tunnel as everyone else. A busified, getting into a collective of previously busified, but already resigned to the situation, mentally assimilates with them, accepts their point of view, creating a comfort zone (swimming against the current is always uncomfortable). There he’s drawn into the topic and also begins to think that everyone else is a scoundrel and an evader, motivation appears. Until he gets into slaughter. There comes awareness and often SOCh."

"I have three – a godfather and two deceased acquaintances who went voluntarily from the first days, but when they came to Kharkov, we drank together, no one shouted that I’m an evader, but on the contrary, that there’s nothing to do there. One, a volunteer too, is already abroad. He went for 2 weeks and has been there for half a year already. He said that just to take a rest..."

"A guy worked nearby, and he had a dog. So he dressed it up in a camouflage vest, a yellow and blue leash. And he himself walked around with all sorts of patriotic bracelets and tridents on his backpack. On the way to work, he was accepted by the TCR and he went to training. Then I see after 2-3 months he is hobbling. I thought he was drunk, but everything turned out to be much more interesting. After training, they were taken in tarpaulin trucks somewhere to the front line. And right when unloading the personnel, they got hit with something cassette-like. So, he wasn't drunk, his legs were cut up by shrapnel, and they hadn't pulled out all the shrapnel from the body yet. They sent him home from the hospital to finish his treatment, but didn’t write him off due to his wounds. And the guy said during conversation that he f*cked all this, he was going to go into SZCh. That's how quickly his surge of patriotism passed."

"Half of my yard is SZCh, the Slobozhansky district. The main thing is not to get caught, otherwise no one cares. We don't have a military prosecutor's office anymore, the cops deal with deserters now, and they don't give a damn about it. In the spring, an acquaintance showed up in the neighborhood. He fought in the Zaporozhye region. In May, the commander came to him and said: "We’re being transferred to Liptsy [one of the hottest places in the Kharkov region], and then you have to decide for yourself, just leave your automat [rifle] if you decide to run away." Well, he left his uniform and is now an SZCh. They’re getting by somehow, like everyone else."
SZCh and SOCh can also be deciphered in our languages as "Courage. Bravery. Honor"

On September 9, we received a letter from Gorlovka, controlled by the far-right "Donetsk People’s Republic" since 2014: "The saddest thing is that if you start telling people that soldiers need to desert the army and turn their weapons against those in power, people will widen their eyes and say, "Do you want 1917 to happen again? For brother against brother again, and for people to swell with hunger? It's better if we endure, otherwise it will get worse." We have photos of those wanted for escape on our streets. And the inscriptions: "Betrayed the republic, betrayed comrades, betrayed himself." I’ve heard the opinion that we have a lot of SOCh. But "a lot of" is a flexible concept. And their captures aren’t published here." We will not cite the name of the person who spoke out.

On September 14, a post appeared in the Telegram channel Mobilization DPR Live about Donetsk mobilized soldiers of military unit 78979 on the Kursk direction complaining about bullying by the new commander and threats to send them on crutches to storm the front. "My advice: if you want to LIVE, run (or let them run), if possible... No one, no human rights bodies will help YOU! I tried! I myself didn’t fully recover from my injury, I was thrown into a meat assault. These bodies simply leaked me after I turned to them for “help”. They leaked me in a unit that wanted to destroy me. The prosecutor’s office didn’t bother to deal with my case. I’ve to save my "life" from lawlessness, arbitrariness myself, now being in the "underground"! They simply don’t need crippled fighters after injuries! They destroy us – THEIR OWN are finishing us off! ... According to plan? According to schedule? Yes?" – a reader with an anonymous profile commented below.

After private contacting for details, he added: "It was in Donetsk. Yes, I deserted! Because I was taken away in a meat assault, having been partially cured, while my Russian passport and mobile phone were taken away, they kept me under armed guard the whole time, insulted and threatened, but I managed to escape, later I contacted the prosecutor's office, to which there was silence, and they simply leaked me from the prosecutor's office to a military unit, where they wanted to zero me out, saying like that I was alive and well, saying look for him, well, you understand why, when they find me, they will zero me out. So I sit quietly and my opinion is that no one will help you, even the prosecutor's office. All those guys with whom I was taken were also partially cured, they died. Sorry, I won't say anything more, I’ll say that this is thriving in the 114th brigade, Donetsk." Being asked how exactly he managed to escape from custody, he did not answer. It is a common thing in both armies: like, I have some information that can help save the lives for others, but I will not share it. The lawlessness from higher ranks relies on those who groan from this.

Alas, after the end of the Vietnam War, such a type of anti-war activist as a military serviceman engaged in agitation and propaganda among his colleagues was practically forgotten. This is exactly what a Russian leftist who introduces himself as Sergey Thälmann wrote to us about on September 2. In addition to other important inside information, his letter helps us understand why there was no widespread desertion among Russian conscripts in the Kursk region, despite the fact that this seems to be the most logical choice for those poorly prepared for battle:

"I’m a conscript, there was no distinct choice. I actively educate soldiers and explain the injustice of the conflict. Of course, I’m not very fond of anarchism, but I believe that there’s no way without anarchists. Anarchism is the heart of communism, and Marxism is its mind.

I’ll say right away that there’s a strange atmosphere among conscripts – for some reason everyone wants to see the war. And when you start explaining that war is not a shooter, not a computer game, their desire immediately disappears. However, there are even such young people who defend Russian capital. They speak in the paradigm of "friends – foes" about Ukrainians and Russians. This is truly frightening. Many sign the contract, but... Taking into account both material and superstructural values. That is, with the desire to see the war. Consumer society has washed away the human brain so much that 19-year-old guys in Balashikha [near Moscow, – Ed.] want to go to Kursk. And it seems to me that such an atmosphere is not only here.

Well, and interesting observations: many officers are outright Nazis. For example, I talked to the communications chief of the mortar division of the 4th regiment. And he told me that I need to read... German thinkers of the 1930s. And there are hundreds of such ones here. Although there are adequate people... On the faces of the mobilized you can see more fear, despair. I talked to so many mobics here – not a single one wanted to fight. Some worked in a plant, some as an electrician. But conscripts are the opposite. Maybe because many are from the provinces, where life is boring and there are few bright emotions. Or maybe because in a consumer society, the consumer can consume absolutely any product provided. Even war becomes a commodity for sale.

In the companies there is also such a concept – military-political information. There they say absolutely terrible things. About how Ukraine almost burns people alive, and almost exclusively hits peaceful cities, ignoring military objects. As if the AFU isn’t an army, but... some small bandit who shoots at everything in sight. The main thing is that they hush up how in Russia, too, they pack people and forcibly send to war.

What can we get here, two concentrated capitals clashed with each other. Their most loyal dogs came out of their kennels)) Ukrainian capital is just as chauvinistic and concentrated in the form of financial capital as Russian. No government can be defended, they are both criminal, both thieves. And war is a war of slave owners for the strengthening and reinforcement of slavery. To support one of the slave owners in it means to be against the oppressed, that is, against the slaves. Against the serfs. Against the proletarians.

By the way, to those who say that Ukraine is a victim. Supporting a young and inexperienced robber in a fight with an old and fat one is supporting robbery as such and further robbery of one of them."

In continuation of what was said about the escapes of Ukrainians from NATO training grounds, we ourselves found a guy from Sumy named Maxim, who did it in the United Kingdom:

"I was mobilized by force, busified. But my plans to escape arose after arriving there. Even though everything was cool there, I didn’t want to return to Ukraine. It’s much easier to escape from training there. There you escape and are already abroad, in Ukraine if you escape, then go and look around, I don’t understand how to live, work, etc. There was no selection as such in our unit, they announced that there’s recruitment to Britain, they took everyone who wanted, even men 50+ years old went. They will take your passports on the 2nd-3rd day, so it’s better to escape on the first day. I was lucky, my passport was left at home and I flew to Britain with a military ID. And then in Europe I received my passport via the post. Just along with my clothes, they even described it in the invoice as a "document", there were no problems. When you escape from training, it’s best to go straight to the airport and as quickly as possible. As far as I know, they only let you surrender to the authorities at the airports to help protect you. You don’t have to get on the plane, you just surrender to the migration service there. They won’t send you back to the unit if you manage to get to the airport. I was dressed like a civilian, I speak English well. It wasn’t difficult, we climbed over the fence at night and that’s it. There is no security at all. It’s better not to tell anyone about the escape at all. Not even your comrades-in-arms."

Finally, since we are talking about Western countries, the historian and political scientist from the Netherlands Fredo Corvo, an adherent of anti-partisan Marxism, devoted to our creature an entire review on the multilingual website Left Dis:

"The article by the Ukrainian group Assembly rightly refers to the mass desertions of Russian soldiers in World War I. When these were supplemented by mass strikes in the arms industry and mass demonstrations by women, the mass desertions turned into soldiers’ revolts and the creation of soldiers’ councils. Thus, in the words of Henriette Roland Holst, the means of struggle for social revolution in Russia were complete, and the proletarian revolution of October 1917 was able to put an end to Russian participation in the war.

Such a perspective may seem rather unlikely in the present situation. In the eyes of the ultra-minority revolutionary communists, there is an enormous gap between the low level of consciousness of the proletariat, its domination by bourgeois ideologies such as nationalism, and their own awareness of the dangers of the present inter-imperialist wars and the consequent need for world revolution. This gap is a fact. However, the working class, as an exploited and oppressed class, has shown that it is capable of raising its consciousness to its historical task in its struggle against the effects of war. The article shows that individual desertion is increasing on both sides of the fronts, with the first appearance of collective and organized desertion.

History does not repeat itself. The proletarian mass movement goes through the stages of previous revolutions in its own way. This is how it can succeed where it failed before. From the (failed) revolutions in Russia and Germany during and immediately after World War I, we know that mass strikes in the armaments industry gave the struggle against the war a proletarian character. Mass demonstrations by women showed the need for courage on the part of men. Both mass strikes and mass demonstrations at home helped turn mass desertions from the front into soldiers’ revolts and the creation of soldiers’ councils. In turn, the revolutionary soldiers were able to prevent the repression of the masses demonstrating against the war.

Another lesson of February 1917 in Russia and November 1918 in Germany, Austria and Hungary is that left bourgeois forces can initially contain mass movements with slogans for nationalism, peace and reform. Last weekend and today, we see a similar containment of a mass movement against war in Israel.

We should understand that ‘the old mole’ is digging and – more importantly – why, how, with what perspectives."

And there will not be any "effective recruitment" here. Russia is big, there are enough alcoholics and just idiots there, for whom the ultimate dream in a civilian job is 30 thousand rubles, so they are ready to go to the slaughter for the sake of millions in payments (and then, judging by the mass coercion of conscripts to sign contracts, even in the Russian Armed Forces there is a serious shortage of contract soldiers). In Ukraine there are fewer fools, and there are no such budgetary resources, so the only basis for mobilization can be a "minivan of invincibility". Those who are not ready to die for this ghetto will not go, no matter how much the recruiters explain that it is important and honorable. Even if they pay mountains of gold under the contract, this will not allow recruiting enough personnel for the Armed Forces of Ukraine, because most of those who remain value their lives more than any money. That's bullshit, folks.

Along with this, you may be interested to read the Assembly’s conversation with a Ukrainian border guard deserted abroad from the Odessa region.

Plus, let us remind about the act of Russian artillerist Yuri Galushko who shot dead six colleagues for his mother injured during a shelling of Kharkov and disappeared since then.