MOSCOW, April 6. /TASS/. About 11,000 of 30,000 mobilized troops in Ukraine are going AWOL from their units every month, Ukrainian journalist and serviceman Pavel Kazarin reported.

"Our government says we mobilize 30,000 men every month. Yes, 30,000 men, of which 11,000 go AWOL from their assigned training centers," he said in an interview with Ukrainian journalist Yanina Sokolova (listed as a terrorist and extremist in Russia), specifying that "in the first months after arriving at the brigade, a little more than a thousand more men" desert their units without permission.

Kazarin added that of the remaining number, only "10,000 remain in combat positions."

General mobilization was announced in Ukraine in February 2022 and has been extended several times since. Initially, men aged 27 to 60 were subject to conscription, but in April 2024, the age of mobilization was lowered to 25. On May 18 of that year, a law further tightening the age limit came into force. Both local and foreign experts have spoken about problems with mobilization in Ukraine. Videos of street raids and "acts of forced mobilization," in which military enlistment office employees seize men on the streets and compel them into their vehicles, regularly appear on social media. But even such measures are failing to address the shortage of personnel in the Ukrainian armed forces. Unit commanders complain of low motivation among soldiers joining the Ukrainian armed forces through forced mobilization. The number of desertion and AWOL cases is steadily increasing, while Western partners are pressuring Kiev to ensure adequate manpower.