The beginning of autumn was marked for Ukraine by a worsening of the
situation on the front lines. Day by day, the defense in the Donetskregion is crumbling; in the Kharkov region, Russian troops are
approaching the Oskol River; in the direction of Kursk, 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 the internal "enemies of the people."[...]
On September 11, a video statement by two-time Kharkov mayoral candidate
Denis Yaroslavsky, who currently heads one of the reconnaissance units
of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, was shared in the mass media and social
networks: "If I tell you now the number of SZCh[Ukrainian abbreviation
for unauthorized desertion of a military unit, in Russian - SOCh]to
date, the entire Russian public will turn against us and shout "look how
many deserters they have". They do not show theirs, we cannot 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 is definitely the second, which is moving to the third.
And it is progressing. At first, we did not have SZCh, because, for
example, when I served in a volunteer battalion, for the first three
months we did not receive a salary, nothing, and there were tens of
thousands of people like me. Because there was a motivation. Motivation
to win. Now the war has entered a stage where all those who do not want
to be there are dragged to the battlefield. Motivated people have died
or are tired," he said about the release from criminal liability of
fugitives who have returned to the army.
On September 9, Kiev journalist Volodymyr Boiko, who serves in the 101st
Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, stated even more clearly about
this law on his Facebook page: "[...]I said and I say that the number of
deserters has already exceeded 150 thousand people and is approaching
200 thousand. With the current dynamics, it is possible to expect 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 not
addressed to those who have already arbitrarily left the military units
(anyway, no one was looking for all of them, and criminal proceedings
had not been studied before), but to those servicemen who faithfully
performed their duty and who now learned with surprise that they can lay
down their arms, go home and will not face any consequences for this.
Today, crimes against the established order of military service are not
investigated at all, deserters are not sought - this is what led to the
fact that the problem has been accumulating for 2 and a half years, and
now the situation has reached a dead end. It is impossible to bring such
a huge number of deserters to justice, and it is impossible to find
them. That is why the head of the bureau Andrii Yermak (may His name be
hallowed!) decided that people should be caught on the streets and sent
to the front instead of deserters. But this does not help: after joining
the military units, the mobilized simply return home. ... After the
criminal case is registered, the deserter is removed from the personnel
lists and can return to service only through the TCR[territorial
recruitment center, i.e. the enlistment office], through remobilization.
... Another thing is that mass desertion has now begun, as people have
seen that it is possible to "get on skis" and there will be nothing to do."
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
from vacation, now soldiers are already leaving and disappearing
directly from their positions, even if there has been no shelling. An
instructor of the 59th motorized infantry brigade of the AFU, which is
fighting near Pokrovsk, told this in a Deutsche Welle video last week.
On September 15, one of the largest news channels in Ukraine also wrote
about how the official statistics of military escapes are
underestimated: "... In addition, SZCh and draft dodgers are removed
from the staff. He left arbitrarily, was absent from the unit for more
than ten days. Or refused to go to the front. Most of the SZCh and draft
dodgers do not have any criminal cases against them, the commanders do
not write reports. Since this spoils the overall statistics of the unit
and calls into question the competence of the commander to lead and
maintain morale. Therefore, such a contingent is quietly removed from
the staff.[...]
On September 14, Lviv serviceman Maxim Bugel wrote on Facebook how the
reluctance of our neighbors in the Sumy region (also bordering the
Russian Kursk region) to provide housing made him think about desertion:
"... There was a hope that after the shelling of Sumy began and many
people left, they would eventually need funds to rent houses in the
places where they had moved.[...]In one of the apartment buildings, in
the settlement where we are now, they were gathering 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."[...]Earlier this month, a well-known
right-wing activist was outraged that residents of a Kharkov high-rise
building wanted to clear out his volunteer depot to avoid the arrival of
missiles.
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, arrived just in time. (It is available in
Russian, English, Spanish, Italian.) A series of comments came from both
sides of the front. From discussions in local Kharkov chats:
[...]"When they came to Kharkov, we drank together, no one shouted that
I was a deserter, but on the contrary, that there was nothing to do
there. One, also a volunteer, is already abroad. He went for 2 weeks and
has been there for six months already. He said just to rest..."
"A guy worked nearby and had a dog. So he dressed him in a camouflage
vest and a yellow and blue leash. And he himself walked around with all
sorts of patriotic bracelets and tridents on his backpack. On his way to
work, he was taken over by the TCR and went to training. Then I see that
after 2-3 months he is limping. 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 just as they were
unloading the personnel, they were shot[...]. So, he was not drunk, his
legs were cut off by shrapnel and they had not yet extracted all the
shrapnel from his body. They sent him home from the hospital to finish
his treatment, but they did not reform him because of his wounds. And
the guy said during the conversation that he was going to enter SZCh.
That's how quickly his wave 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 care. 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 are being transferred to Liptsy[warm front]you
have to decide for yourself, leave your automatic rifle if you decide to
run away." Well, he left his uniform and is now an SZCh. Somehow he is
getting by, like everyone else."
[From the other side of the front]On September 9, we received a letter
from Gorlovka, which has been controlled by the far-right entity
"Donetsk People's Republic" since 2014: "The saddest thing is that if
you start telling people that soldiers should desert the army and turn
their weapons against those in power, people roll their eyes and say:
'Do you want 1917 to happen again?[...]
On September 14, a post appeared on the[pro-Russian]Telegram channel
Mobilization DPR Live about mobilized Donetsk soldiers from military
unit 78979 in the direction of Kursk 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 body will help you! I tried! I myself have not
fully recovered from my wound, I was used as "cannon fodder" in an
assault.[...]I have to save my life from illegality, arbitrariness,
being now in hiding! They simply do not need crippled fighters after
wounds! They destroy us - THEY are finishing us off! ... According to
plan? According to the program? Yes?" - a reader with an anonymous
profile commented below. Contacted privately for details, he added: "I
was in Donetsk. Yes, I deserted! Because I was taken away in a
"last-ditch assault", having been partially treated, while my Russian
passport and mobile phone were taken away, I was kept under armed guard
the whole time, insulted and threatened, but I managed to escape[...].
Sorry, I won't say more, I will say that this is thriving in the 114th
Brigade, Donetsk." When asked how exactly he managed to escape from
custody, he did not answer. It is a common thing in both armies[...].
Alas, after the end of the Vietnam War, the type of anti-war activist
such as the soldier engaged in agitation and propaganda among his
colleagues was practically forgotten. This is exactly what a Russian
leftist introducing himself as Sergey Thälmann wrote to us on September
2. In addition to other important inside information, his letter helps
us understand why there were no widespread desertions among Russian
conscripts in the Kursk region, despite the fact that this seems to be
the most logical choice for those who are poorly prepared for battle:
"I am a conscript, there was no specific choice. I actively educate
soldiers and explain the injustice of the conflict. Of course, I do not
like anarchism very much, but I believe that there is no way without
anarchists. Anarchism is the heart of communism, and Marxism is its mind.
I will say right away that there is a strange atmosphere among the
conscripts, for some reason everyone wants to see the war. And when you
start explaining that war is not a gunfighter's business, it is not a
computer game, their desire immediately disappears. However, there are
also young people who defend Russian capital. They speak in the paradigm
of "friends - enemies" of Ukrainians and Russians. This is really scary.
Many sign the contract, but... Taking into account both material and
superstructural values. That is, with the desire to see war. The
consumer society has washed out the human brain to such an extent that
19-year-old boys from 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 real Nazis. For
example, I talked to the chief of communications of the mortar division
of the 4th regiment. And he told me that I need to read... German
thinkers of the 30s. And there are hundreds of them here. Although there
are adequate people... On the faces of the mobilized you can see more
fear, despair. I talked to so many mobilized here, no one wanted to
fight. Some worked in a factory, some as electricians. But conscripts
are the opposite. Maybe because many come 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.[...]
What can we get here, two concentrations of capital clash with each
other. Their most faithful dogs have come out of their kennels,
Ukrainian capital is just as chauvinistic and concentrated in the form
of financial capital as Russian capital. No government can be defended,
they are both criminals, both thieves. And the war is a war of slave
owners for the strengthening of slavery. To support one of the slave
owners means to be against the oppressed, that is, against slaves.
Against serfs. Against proletarians.
By the way, to those who say that Ukraine is a victim. To support a
young and inexperienced robber in a fight with an old and fat one is to
support robbery as such and the further robbery of one of them".
In continuation of what has been said about the escapes of Ukrainians
from NATO training camps, we ourselves found a guy from Sumy named
Maxim, who did it in the UK:
"I was mobilized by force. But my escape plans were born after arriving
there. Although everything was fine there, I did not want to return to
Ukraine. It is much easier to escape from training there. There you
escape and you are already abroad, in Ukraine if you escape, then go and
look around, I do not understand how to live, work, etc. There was no
selection as such in our unit, they announced that there was a
recruitment in Britain, they took everyone they wanted, even men of 50+
years old went. They will take your passports on the 2nd-3rd day, so it
is better to escape on the first day. I was lucky, my passport was left
at home and I flew to Britain with a military card. And then in Europe I
received my passport by mail. Right along with my clothes, they even
described it on the invoice as a "document", no problems. When you
escape from training, it is better to go straight to the airport and as
quickly as possible. As far as I know, they let you surrender to the
authorities at the airports just for protection. 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 good English. 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. Not even your
comrades in arms."[...]
And there will be no "actual recruitment" here. Russia is big, there are
enough[...]idiots for whom the ultimate dream is 30 thousand rubles in a
civilian job, so they are ready to go to the slaughterhouse to get
millions[...]. In Ukraine there are fewer fools and there are no such
budget resources, so[...]those who are not ready to die for this ghetto
will not go there, no matter how much the recruiters explain that it is
important and honorable. Even if they pay mountains of gold, it will not
allow them to recruit enough personnel for the Ukrainian Armed Forces,
because most of those who remain value their lives more than any money.
This is bullshit, people.
Assembly Group - Kharkiv
assembly.org.ua
https://umanitanova.org/la-diserzione-dilaga-in-ucraina/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
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