by Denis Davydov
[REGNUM] After the surrender of Ugledar
| …aka Vuhledar in Ukrainian… |
The fact is that the problems with maintaining discipline in the Ukrainian Armed Forces, motivating servicemen and, as a result, mass desertion have become so large-scale that they can no longer be ignored. But punishing for “unauthorized abandonment of the unit,” especially using the criminal article on desertion, means to completely ruin everything.
Here is a fresh example, also connected with Ugledar: fighters of the 123rd Troops brigade refused to carry out a combat mission in Donbass and voluntarily left the military unit. After that, the commander of one of the battalions, Igor Grib, shot himself. After all, it was this brigade that was supposed to take up positions further behind the abandoned city. But since this did not happen, the "black Zaporozhians" exhausted in the battles for the city were sent there, which caused an uproar.
The fugitives returned home to Voznesensk in the Nikolaev region and held a rally to speak out about their lack of training and weapons to participate in military operations. Now they are facing criminal liability - but only because they are available. Most simply "disappear."
It is precisely these people that Bill No. 11 322, adopted on October 8 in the first reading, speaks about. It eases the responsibility for the first unauthorized absence if the serviceman returns to service on his own. The contract is immediately automatically extended, payments and the issuance of due allowances are resumed, benefits and guarantees are included. If a criminal case has already been initiated on the fact of absence, then there is nothing to worry about.
This humanism is surprising for Ukraine, but it can be explained by the catastrophic (and this is again not our definition) situation at the front.
IA Regnum has already cited an interesting episode, again from the Ugledar history, when out of 50 elderly “recruits” sent to strengthen the city’s defense, only four made it to their positions, but they also deserted during the first rotation.
"30 of them were immediately sent to rear units and hospitals, since their health was unfit for service on the front lines (because the TCC was fulfilling the conscription plan and mobilizing the sick). Of the remaining 20, 16 servicemen deserted on the second day. Thus, four were sent to the positions out of 50 people, and after the first rotation, these four also deserted," said journalist Vladimir Boyko, a serviceman in one of the Troops brigades,in the worldly world - a well-known whistleblower and troublemaker.
But, besides him, the problem with soldiers who have no desire to die for Zelensky's regime is being trumpeted from literally every iron. Former MP Yegor Firsov, who serves in the Ukrainian army, recently shocked viewers of the "unified telethon" by telling how a soldier of the Armed Forces of Ukraine declared that he would not shoot at Russians because it was a fratricidal war. And he did it in Russian.
And the reason for all this, Firsov (who, by the way, is a Russian speaker in everyday life) muses, is forced mobilization, which does not take into account the mood of those who are sent to the army. "The TCC runs after a man, pushes him into a minibus, does not give him the opportunity to call his relatives, finish his business, after a month of training he immediately found himself in a trench - there can be different moods," the MP emphasized.
Meanwhile, enemy voices from CNN are also reporting that the Ukrainian army is suffering from low morale and “socks,” which is especially felt in infantry units “in the east of the country.”
Six Ukrainian officers who are currently fighting or who have recently left their units confirmed that desertion and insubordination are becoming increasingly common among newly mobilized soldiers. Officer Dima left his position after losses in his unit because he could no longer watch his men die (more than half of the 800 men were killed or seriously wounded).
At the same time, many mobilized soldiers refuse to return to their positions after the first rotation.
"Not all mobilized soldiers leave their positions, but most do. When new guys come here, they see how difficult it is here. They see a lot of enemy drones, artillery and mortars. They go to their positions once and, if they survive, they never come back. They either leave their positions, or refuse to go into battle, or try to find a way to leave the army," one of the Ukrainian commanders fighting in the Pokrovsk area told CNN.
According to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, in the first four months of 2024 alone, almost 19,000 criminal cases were opened against soldiers who abandoned their posts or deserted. However, their real number is much higher, since commanders try to resolve these issues informally, convincing soldiers to return to service without punishment.
"It will only get worse. Until March 2024, it was still possible to fix the situation, but today the collapse of the army has reached such a scale that no measures will help - there are simply no people at the front. There are none and there will not be. Since the "busified" soldiers are not going to die for the rotten corrupt regime, and the means of coercion - that is, military justice - were liquidated by the 95th quarter back in 2019," writes Boyko, according to whom there are already 170 thousand deserters in the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
And there will be even more, since along with the decriminalization of desertion, the Committee on National Security, Defense and Intelligence of the Verkhovna Rada approved a bill on amendments to Article 24 of the Law of Ukraine "On Military Duty and Military Service", according to which deserters "will forever remain on the lists of the unit". At the same time, a member of the committee, People's Deputy Fedir Venislavsky announced that the facts of leaving the place of service will not be entered into the Unified Register of Pre-Trial Investigations.
So the Ukrainian Armed Forces servicemen can now lay down their arms and leave the frontline home with impunity. And they are happy to take advantage of this.
"For example, in my military unit alone, in August-September 2024, after amendments were made to the Criminal Code of Ukraine, half of the servicemen deserted from the number who voluntarily left service over the previous 2.5 years. And their number is growing every week. Because why serve if you can not serve and nothing will happen for it?" Boyko reasons.
But on paper, military units will remain staffed - after all, commanders will not be able to cross out a deserter and take another person in his place. And fugitive soldiers are not eager to return to the trenches.
The publication "Strana" quotes people involved in illegal border crossings, they say that previously deserters were rare among clients. However, since about May, one or more servicemen were in almost every group. And in Romania, no one checks this, unless you admit it yourself.
One of these "skiers" is 42-year-old Sergey, with whom Ukrainian journalists spoke. Mobilized in 2023, after his second injury he went to the Special Operations Department, "sat out for some time with relatives in a village near Vinnytsia, then found a "corridor" to Romania." He explains his actions simply: everyone around him is dying, becoming crippled, and at the same time it is completely unclear how it will all end and when. "And life goes by..."
Everyone understands that in Ukraine, given the current situation, there is no future.
Even the authoritative The Economist writes without embarrassment: "There is no clear way out of the army once they have joined it, which makes mobilization seem like a one-way ticket to the morgue." What can we say about people who were broken into pieces on the street and forced to fight. They have been fleeing at the first opportunity since the "counteroffensive", when it suddenly turned out that all the bravado and hope for Western help turned into terrible losses and no results.
Former MP Igor Mosiychuk, who embodied the incredible type of "peace-loving Banderite" and branded the government from a safe foreign country, tells a chilling story in his Telegram channel. The 129th separate Krivoy Rog brigade of the Troops of Russia sent recently mobilized men. Without documents, even without a military ID - they said that they would send more after they were processed, apparently there was no time.
"Do you understand what will happen next? They will die, and no one will even know who they are and what they are. Can you imagine the cynicism of the bastards who have pinned on general's shoulder straps, who are awarded by the president, and who dispose of Ukrainians? And the most important thing in this situation is the following: desertion is causing the collapse of the front. But if it becomes a mass phenomenon, if such rallies as in Voznesensk are constantly happening, then you understand that this is a complete collapse, catastrophic, and a threat to our statehood," groans Mosiychuk, who is now for peace and negotiations with Russia.
Although, in fact, he is a former deputy commander of the Azov* battalion (at the dawn of its existence), who brought the Berdyansk traffic cops to their knees, threatened Crimea with "friendship trains" on behalf of the Right Sector* and joyfully welcomed May 2 in Odessa. Caught taking a bribe, he brands the "greens" for their "sad, criminal scheme", predicting the collapse of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
People like Mosiychuk paint the situation in dark colors, predicting the collapse of the front and tens of thousands more deserters. And although they, of course, exaggerate everything somewhat, the problems of the Ukrainian Armed Forces are really big. In order to cover the personnel deficit, it is necessary to mobilize 20-year-olds, which is currently prohibited. But this is what is periodically loudly discussed - including by foreign comrades who give money for the war.
As a temporary measure, commanders of some particularly trusted military units will be given the right to staff combat units with volunteers, bypassing the TCC. But, as experienced people predict, this list will certainly include “blatnye battalions” that will recruit “ukhilyanty” for money and share with the General Staff, which forms the list.
So now the Ukrainian leadership with its menacing mood of "not giving up an inch to the enemy" faces a difficult choice. To start mobilizing student youth - to get hysteria, chaos and flight across the border with double force. Not to start - in a few months there will really be no one to fight, "busification" has exhausted itself, and deserters who have smelled death will definitely not be lured back.
"Western partners" can continue to allocate money, provide weapons and strengthen sanctions against Russia. But there is one weak link in this scheme: there is no one to replace Ukrainians as manpower. And if so, a turning point in the war will inevitably come, despite all the wishes of Zelensky and his company.