Racing Against Death. Ukrainian Desertion and Related Matters in 2026

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The disintegration of Ukrainian military ranks over the past four and a half years has become one of the largest acts of civil disobedience in Ukraine's history since 1991: between the start of the full-scale Russian invasion and last November—when statistics regarding Articles 407 and 408 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine were classified—nearly 300,000 cases of absence without leave (AWOL or SZCh in Ukrainian) and desertion were registered. According to the latest available data from the Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine, twice as many military personnel fled the army last year as during the first two and a half years of the war. Romania’s decision to stop automatically granting temporary protection—effective August 5—to men entering the country outside of official border crossings is likely to affect this specific strata most of all. Those ready to leave this NATO’s private military country had already done so—with the exception of deserters and some civilians who, until the very last moment, believed in a miracle that the peace agreement is just around the corner. Although the procedure has not yet been detailed, and it is possible that deserters might actually find themselves even in a privileged position, given that the Reserve+ app lists them as having been "removed from the military registry"—like other military personnel (it remains unclear whether this suffices or if one must specifically appear as "excluded" from the military registry, meaning ineligible for military service at all). As a mobilized programmer from Kharkov who recently fled to Moldova explains on June 9:

"Most of those who wanted to leave have already left; plus, the screws are being tightened even further this year—and that’s not even counting the State Border Guard Service and the like. Moving around the streets has become harder, let alone traveling across the country, so my take is that the number of people even attempting it has dropped. It’s more likely that fewer are going; there are many factors at play. Some people don't go to work because of the TRC—they lack the funds for the journey and for life abroad, and so on. A dude went mushroom picking with us—he’d served in air defense and was perfectly happy until they started transferring personnel to the infantry. As soon as we got out, he started singing how he wants to go back because life abroad is too hard for him. So that’s what they’re like, the professional Ukrainians."

However, considering that the total strength of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine is 75,000 personnel, this figure exceeds the number of those who have clandestinely fled to Romania—approximately 30,000 since the start of the war up to the spring of this year. Border guards themselves are among them; for instance, in April of this year, a 28-year-old major from Izmail stepped away to the restroom during a meeting between Ukrainian and Romanian border guards—held as part of a joint investigation—and asked his Romanian counterparts for protection. A source we spoke to in Odessa even mentioned that some people enlist there specifically with the intention of desertion:

"My acquaintance signed a contract with the State Border Service of Ukraine. He was 23 at the time; he just signed the contract with a unit and that was it. He served for a year like that, until a combat deployment order for the Kursk sector came through. Luckily, he managed to slip away one night while on duty. He had actually changed his mind about running away—the original goal of the contract had been to flee from Ukraine—and had started training as a dog handler; the wage was decent, they grant vacations, he went there as if it was a job. But all good things come to an end. The commander was replaced, and combat deployment orders to Kursk started flying in one after another. As I understand it, the objective was to clean up vacancies. And just so you get the picture: during his year of service, he was taken to the training range only twice. He wasn't the only one, either; desertion from the Border Guard Service isn't rare. The guy is chilling in Norway now. The only thing was that they kept him in detention a bit longer and interrogated him more thoroughly because he was a serviceman. And the most interesting part is that when he received the deployment order, he still had one to three shifts left to pull. And—wouldn't you know it—he escaped that trip while the border was still right there. Five to seven other guys from his unit had left before him".

A reader from Kharkov shared quite a similar story on March 8:

"Last Thursday, my tenant—a young guy—moved out. He lived near the ‘Equator’ [shopping mall] for three years. We had long talks about life. He’s against the war and those in power. He works in the police, in the metro [Ed. note: we are omitting the specific station for safety reasons]. He’s constantly getting fined for failing to meet mobilization quota. Deliberately doesn’t stop young people; instead, he target older men—those closer to 60— supposedly, we’ll get out of it on health grounds anyway, and nobody really needs us anymore. He’s turning 25 in half a year and is really worried. They keep getting sent to some police assault brigade. He has only one thing on his mind: how to quit and leave to join his aunt in the Netherlands..."

Moreover, Alexander Fatsevich, the then-acting chairman of Ukraine’s patrol police, complained complained in an April interview:

"We have a big shortage, the rollback started in 2024-2026. There are not enough crews on the line, especially in Kyiv, because there are many reports here. Plus, our patrols stand at checkpoints, accompany cargo, and have other tasks, such as working with TRC. The latter reduces trust in the police to zero. [...] Why are policemen and patrolmen resigning? We analyzed it. Most resign because they do not want to engage in mobilization. We invite community police officers to funerals. To the funerals of the guys they mobilized. They hate the head of the district department, the community police officer, and the patrol officer there. They cannot stand it and resign. Someone takes a summons and goes to war."

Incidents of fragging are far rarer. Still, we have tracked something. On May 2, a Telegram channel created by Russian occupation forces posted the following: "On April 20, 2026, near the settlement of Malaya Shapkovka (Kupyansk district, Kharkov region), an armed mutiny broke out among the personnel of a composite assault unit formed from troops of several Ukrainian brigades. During the conflict, Captain Sergey Malovichko (born in 1980), the deputy commander of an assault company, was killed. The deceased was a special forces soldier with the 15th 'Qara-Dag' Operational Assignment Brigade (1st Corps of the National Guard of Ukraine/Azov) and had been coordinating assault groups attempting to relieve positions and break through Russian Armed Forces defenses on the Kupyansk sector of the front. According to operational data, the mutiny was triggered by an act of insubordination by a group of soldiers who refused to carry out a combat mission due to Captain Malovichko’s incompetent actions; his previous decisions had already resulted in heavy personnel losses. The conflict escalated into an armed clash during which subordinates inflicted multiple fatal gunshot wounds on Malovichko." Russian state-linked media published the same story, citing an unnamed "source within Russian law enforcement agencies." The website of Ukrainian state TV confirms the death of Captain Sergey Malovichko on April 20 while on a combat mission in the Kupyansk district, though it lists his year of birth as 1979. The report notes that he was from the Zaporozhye region, had been fighting since 2015, underwent training in Latvia, and held several state awards. The obituary does not clarify whether he died from gunshot wounds. In other words, no direct refutation of the Russian version was given.

27-year-old Bogdan Koshel was sentenced on June 9 to life imprisonment in Chernigov for killing two instructors with an assault rifle at the Goncharivske training ground. Last summer, we showed what it looked like. Bogdan was mobilized from Kiev in June 2025. According to the man, after the start of the full-scale war, he wanted to go to Russia because he did not want to serve and there was no language barrier. He did not succeed in doing this. In the army, Bogdan was considered a recruited by the Russians, and this made him angry. At first, he thought about shooting himself. He reacted to the verdict simply: "It was expected. I knew about it from day one. It's normal. We'll sit and see." Remarkable composure, considering that over the past year not a single foreign anti-militarist has expressed support for him—even those who openly call for such acts to be committed…

Bogdan Koshel on trial. From state TV

What about fraternization? On April 16, the YouTube channel of the 10th Army Corps of the Armed Forces of Ukraine released a video about a 41-year-old user of synthetic drugs ("salt") from the Tver region of Russia who had spent months hiding with locals in Kupyansk. Reportedly, Taras Podoprigora, an electrician, had been using drugs while working at the Kalinin Nuclear Power Plant. He signed a military contract on March 27 of last year after a criminal case was opened against him for distributing drugs in an especially large quantity (20 grams). "The commander, 'Moscow,' treated us like cattle, you could say. On September 12, I was taken to Kupyansk. In Kupyansk, I arrived at Garden Street, where 'Picasso' was already waiting. We sat there for a month. We stayed in a house there until October 13. On October 13, we got hit—we were under fire—and moved into a four-story building. We stayed there for a week; on the 21st, your guys stormed the place. And that was it—we all scattered in different directions." Afterward, they approached the remaining residents and asked for food. "They told us we could go live in that house—the one next door. We lived in that house until February 24. We spent the winter with the local residents; they kept the stove going." Taras says he surrendered to Ukrainian forces voluntarily: "They threw us in there as meat. I don't know why they do it. I didn't want to go to prison; I thought the war would end in May and I wouldn't make it that far. To kill everyone, probably—that’s what I thought—just to get rid of all the unnecessary people; that was our whole goal in coming here. Just to get rid of everyone who wasn't needed." Another case in the Kharkov region allegedly took place during the first spring of the war in Shestakovo, where a local man sheltered a Russian deserter after the area was liberated. However, in the comments under a post about this, a Ukrainian military serviceman from Kharkov wrote that the guy is lying, since he took part in combat operations until his tank was knocked out.

Such stories are taking place on other fronts as well. In the spring, BBC News Ukraine and the Ukrainian state TV channel published the case of 34-year-old Vadym Lietunov from Odessa. A veteran of the earlier conflict in Donbass, he had managed a construction supply store before the full-scale invasion and rejoined the army on the very first morning of the war. That spring, he was fighting with the 118th Mechanized Brigade on the Zaporozhye direction. On March 13, an explosion destroyed his dugout, killing his comrade. Vadym managed to dig himself out and cross minefields to reach a nearby shelter, where he encountered a Russian soldier named Nikita. Nikita is described as an unstable drug addict who had enlisted from prison; he had previously tried to flee from his post but had been forced back. The resident of Odessa spent two weeks sharing the dugout with him until a Ukrainian drone spotted a sign bearing his call sign, "Cartman." Nikita surrendered, and Vadym was sent to a hospital to treat frostbite on his feet. It would not be such a bad idea for all the soldiers to set up a table in the neutral zone, have a hundred-gram shot each, and then go to their government districts or, at the very least, back home...

Then, truly amazing things began. Since the beginning of summer, grant-funded Ukrainian media outlets—alongside British ones like The Times or Sky News—suddenly took note of regular beatings to death and extrajudicial executions within the assault regiments of the AFU, also known as "Syrskyi’s regiments." Or death units. The reason is simple: an information attack on Commander-in-Chief Syrskyi, with whom the European puppet—Defense Minister Fedorov—has clashed over drone budgets. For example, they published the following story of an escape from a regiment from which escape is considered impossible: "By all indications, 36-year-old Arkadiy Kukshin should not have been mobilized – he worked at a critical infrastructure enterprise, was a full-time student, and besides, he was removed from the military register before 2022 due to a criminal record. But on April 28, he was detained by TRC military in Kharkiv. Arkadiy resisted, during a fight his tooth was knocked out and tear gas was poured into his eyes. The man was sent to 'The Rock' 425th Separate Assault Regiment. He received combat training at the regiment’s training ground in the Sumy region. "There are 600–700 people under escort there, everyone from that location wants to escape, but everyone thinks it’s unrealistic," says Arkadiy. He spent a week there. He decided to escape on May 4 at 4:30 in the morning. The area around the training ground was mined. "I went out on the mines, ran through the forest, at about 7 am I went out into the village, came across The Rock’s patrol, they started shooting at me. I was wounded twice. I ran through the fields, forests, swamps, miraculously escaped from them, I’m in trouble," Arkadiy says about his escape. The man reached Kharkiv and went not to his own place, but to an apartment of acquaintances. He lay there with a bullet wound for five days, his wife came to inject him with antibiotics. And then the doctor secretly pulled the bullet out of his leg. Several fragments still remained in his left palm. Because of them, his hand does not function well. […] The police came to his wife’s apartment, looking for Arkadiy. The law enforcement officers asked the woman if she knew at work that she was hiding a soldier in the North-Eastern Front. […] Arkadiy uploaded a photo of himself against the background of the Carpathians with the caption: "I came out." In the end, the man illegally left the country.” The same material states that a guard killed Oleksandr Zavalov, from the Kirovohrad region, with an assault rifle as he attempted to escape through a toilet window.

The 225th Assault Regiment also drew the attention of former USAID clients this summer, even though the Assembly had reported on its "tree of truth," graves for those who tried to flee their training center in the region of Kharkov, and the opening of fire on fighters abandoning their positions since last December. From our conversation with their former assault trooper, who escaped to Romania last year:

"I left the Sumy region—not just the unit, but from scratch... There are no barrier detachments. They simply issue an order to destroy anyone moving about who isn't at their position. And even then, only your battalion or company commander can give such an order. That’s what my company commander did when he found out I’d bailed. The neighboring units don't care; they’d just report over the radio that they’d spotted a soldier, but by the time the reply came through, I was already long gone! The scariest thing is the FPV drones...!!!! They fly in whole swarms; it’s a massive problem! But it is survivable if you know how. I was in absolute hell (the 225th Regiment). My advice is to get out! I only made it out because I’ve had combat experience since 2015! I’m not urging anyone to abandon their positions or become a deserter! DEATH TO THE RUSSIAN OCCUPIERS!!!!!! But in my case, my command sent us to certain DEATH! Zelya is the country's number-one ORC!!!! My decision and actions led me to where I’m now—in a foreign country, without the language and without my family. (My wife took a lover while I was getting killed near Sumy). I got out on my own. They issue these orders against our own people...!!!! If one of our own left—deserted—the order is to open fire to kill! And don't forget that our own drone (a Mavic) is constantly hovering overhead... Orders like that were issued against my position at least four times... I understood why the guys are getting out of that hell, and I held no grudges against them! Have a good trip, men...!!!! I hope you got as lucky as I did...!!!!"

While we were telling last winter on the situation within the 225th and 425th Regiments, the same grant-funded media dismissed it all as "Russian propaganda" and labeled those writing about it "Kremlin agents." Do you still believe that the professional crusaders against “hostile disinformation” actually believe what they write?

A retired military serviceman from Kharkov confirms our interlocutor's words:

"It’s problematic to make a run for it now. For at least 200 years, the British military model—which this system follows—has been designed for an army recruited from an enslaved people to wage war against that very same people. You either serve the system or you’re a subordinate slave. That’s it. Here’s a real-life story: a comrade got picked up. He was sent to an assault unit—something like the 225th or 'The Rock'. The training camps for these assault units are basically prisons in the woods: no communication, surrounded by barbed wire, and sometimes with a mined perimeter. In Kharkov, the units doing this are 'Khartiia' and the 225th; most of the people 'picked up' in the city were taken by those guys. Even if you manage to slip away, you still have to get somewhere to avoid being picked up by a patrol. He paid a hefty sum to get smuggled out of the training camp and brought home. They called every number in his contacts, showed up at his wife’s workplace, kicked down his apartment door while the cops watched, made threats, and so on—but they didn't find him. Now he’s holed up in a deep cellar at an acquaintance's place. According to him, anyone who tried to desert and got caught in the woods never made it out—they were just written off as SZCh. It’s not that simple. The guys running this know exactly how to break people. It’s easier for them to just kill you than let you escape. Actually, the TRCs operate on the same principle now: more brutality, more fear, less resistance."

The 425th Regiment is currently fighting alongside the 58th Motorized Infantry Brigade north of Kharkov, having been redeployed there due to the Russian army’s advance from the Belgorod region. On July 11, another fugitive mobilized man from Kharkov told us about transportation of his former comrades to this front from a training center 800 km away:

"All 18 of them made it there; they were driven in a regular bus—no security guard or anything like that—and are now undergoing combat integration training. By the way, it’s still easy enough to just run off from there. But everyone believes in a miracle... I feel bad for the guys... but those are just details... They’re all brave, with the attitude of 'if not us, then who? What else can we do—walk around scared?' There’s an offensive underway, it seems; well, defending the homeland is a sacred duty—Kharkov is in danger […] The guys don't have any special roles yet; they're all riflemen heading to the front line—two young guys, two older ones, and off they go. They're being sent there to be slaughtered. Together with the 425th. By the way, a local guy—judging by the stats—said that 30 men went AWOL in a single week; that’s a significant number for that brigade. This came from a old serviceman who handles sending mobilized ones from the staging bases to the front. They’re leaving in droves, according to the brigade's officers; I hope at least some of my guys come to their senses and get in touch."

An illegal pit in the 63rd Mechanized Brigade of the AFU. A voiceover claims these are "educational measures": one of them had tried to go AWOL, while the other "refused to chip in money." Even many Ukrainian fascists are reluctant to speak about such practices; Russian "anarcho"-fascists publicly justify it. You must sit in the pit now, otherwise imperialist Russia might throw you into it sometime later!

Finally, some universal rules from the previously mentioned Kharkov resident who made his way to Moldova:

"The right way to go AWOL is quietly. The wrong way is to be rude, make your stance known, take your weapon with you, hold a position of material responsibility, and so on. I, for instance, left all state property behind—didn't take even a sock—didn't argue with anyone, and just quietly slipped away. You have to blend in as much as possible with that rabble, saluting and chanting 'Ukraine Above All' and 'Our Father Bandera.' The brainwashing there is like something out of the Third Reich; by the second day, the guys were parroting quotes from the TV marathon about how Russia is supposedly on the verge of collapse. 90% of them mimic the 'Banderites,' and everyone is terrified to go against the grain. If you try to talk about escape one-on-one, the person you're talking to will think it's a setup and decide it's safer to turn you in. In reality, 70–80% want to flee, but they can't team up with strangers because of the atomization—it’s every man for himself. And those who decide to act the 'wrong way' get brutally broken. The stories about killings or people being maimed at the TRCs prove it."

Oleg Gavrilov on trial. From state TV

Of the five persons detained and remanded in custody for 60 days following clashes with the TRC and police in Lviv on the evening of July 8, three turned out to be military servicemen. The youngest and one of the older suspects at that moment were in AWOL, the third serviceman was on leave. According to the investigation, 23-year-old Oleg Gavrilov hit the deputy head of the district police department in the face and sprayed tear gas into an inspector's eyes. His advocate says that he sincerely repents for what he did and does not deny his guilt. Regarding two 28-year-old detainees—along with two civilians aged 21 and 45—the Security Service of Ukraine states: "These involved were the most active participants in the incident. They blocked the path of a military service vehicle, jumped on it, and damaged the vehicle." Here is how it happened.

It would seem that defending the people rather than the regime should not be all that difficult. Yet, the majority of the pixels will not do it, as they are living their best years thanks to the war. Class-based analyses of militarism still tend to boil down to unsubstantiated moralizing—claiming that "war is always waged against the poor" and "benefits only the bourgeoisie"—while ignoring the fact that hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians left the ranks of the proletariat precisely because of the war, and have no desire to return to them. Two testimonies from Kharkov—one from an elderly man and one from a woman:

"A neighbor recently overheard some soldiers arguing—asking why do they need to end the war, what they’d do back in civilian life if they’re pulling in 21k here ) And that’s exactly how it is. If you don’t go on assaults like meat, there are no problems at all. If you land a decent spot, you’re not just getting 21k, but at least 50. That’s assuming you ‘worked out a good deal.’ You get paid based on where you’re officially listed, not where you actually are)) Good luck finding that kind of money in civilian life. Plus, you don’t have to spend on a lot of things. In fact, they recruit about 10–20% as suicide troops, get them wiped out, and just keep the cycle going. The 80% of ‘old hands’ in the unit are doing fine. It’s the same in civilian life, by the way: the 90% who don’t have to go to the army are doing great."

"I spoke to our local police officer, and he said: ‘Look, half the guys hanging out at that dive bar by the bus stop are AWOL, but they won’t take them anymore—they’ve run off multiple times, and their units simply don’t want them back... Sure, they might get picked up, get the crap beaten out of them by the TRC, and that’s it. Because they can’t even jail them... So, they just don’t bother with the barflies.’ And there are more and more of such barflies... They support their families and scrape by on odd jobs... Like all the rest of them—scrapping metal here, doing a quick job for a bottle there, swiping whatever isn’t nailed down... Some live as ‘communes’... Right now, the untouchables—the ones with special status—are either the majors [kids of rich parents] or the marginals. The TRC doesn’t touch either group. But the middle—ordinary people, from blue-collar workers to the intelligentsia and small entrepreneurs—they’re the potential targets.."

Another Kharkov resident who ran away from the 79th Air Assault Brigade after combat missions points out the same things in a local chat:

"I’ve been AWOL for exactly two years. My logic is simple: back when I was in the Air Assault Forces, I wanted to transfer to the Drone Systems Forces, but the commander would have sent me to a frontline position with no rotation date if I’d asked. The funny thing is, I hang out at the playground with my kid alongside other dads just like me—and alongside these mighty warriors who serve in rear-echelon roles and simply moved their families closer. That whole damn bunch of soldiers feels f***ing great about army life. We’ve got two armies: one big and well-connected, and another that’s poor. I think if everyone ended up in the kind of army I see here every day, the TRCs would be swamped with volunteers. You can tell the rear-echelon servicemen are actually loving what’s happening. So, there we are at the playground with kids: one’s a drone commander, another’s a supplier, and an AWOL. For some reason, a bunch of fat-assed military guys don't think about their brothers-in-arms when I see them clustering together and drinking coffee by a cafe in the morning—yet people tried to convince me that I don’t think about my guys. So, he is thinking about them—by sending me there instead of himself? The moment those rear-echelon guys get sent to combat, they’ll go AWOL immediately. Last year, they threatened to transfer the air defense personnel, and the outcry was huge. I haven't spoken to anyone for almost two years now. And there wasn't really anyone to talk to at the front, either—just meth-heads, drunks, gambling addicts, die-hard patriots, military fanatics. I’m going to try coming back from AWOL; in a couple of days, I’ll submit a transfer request to the Drone Systems Forces. We’ll see if it’s scarier than the Air Assault Forces or not."

The conclusion is the same as the one we drew a year ago. The flight of troops—replaced by new ones every month—does not in itself derail the war; rather, it ties the hands of the regimes involved and hinders any breaking out of the protracted positional stalemate. The stalemate that has dragged on so long that either side is ready to sharp escalation in a desperate bid to achieve a decisive breakthrough in its favor—precisely what we are witnessing this summer with the intensification of mutual strikes on civilian infrastructure of Russia and Ukraine.