MOSCOW, October 9. /TASS/. Ukrainian soldiers are deserting due to poor treatment within the army, including extortion by officers, Verkhovna Rada lawmaker Sergey Yevtushok said.

"We're talking about those who left their units without authorization. There are a lot of them, and not just because of fear. A significant percentage desert due to commanders engaging in non-statutory relations with their subordinates and extorting money for minor violations. There are numerous cases like this," he said on the News Live YouTube channel.

The MP also criticized the actions of local military commission representatives, who "take people off the streets and put them directly on buses." In his view, this is an attempt to boost conscription numbers, which negatively impacts the quality of recruits joining the Ukrainian armed forces. "Such a person is unmotivated," he added.

The head of the Political Values Research Center, Oles Dony, stated on August 23 that the Ukrainian authorities had documented 37,000 cases of desertion since the beginning of the year, but the actual number is believed to be twice as high. Verkhovna Rada member Ruslan Gorbenko earlier mentioned that Ukraine had initiated nearly 80,000 cases against military personnel for unauthorized abandonment of units. In addition, Ukrainian journalist Vladimir Boyko estimated that since February 2022, the total number of deserters has reached around 170,000.

The Ukrainian Strana weekly highlighted that desertion among Ukrainian personnel had been present from the very beginning of the conflict at varying scales. However, in late 2024, this issue escalated into a widespread trend.