The following article is from Assembly, an anarchist group in Ukraine,
which they have asked us to re-publish. ---- While the mass desertion ofpersonnel from the Ukrainian Armed Forces has already become one of the
largest acts of civil disobedience in the country's history since 1991,
there is almost complete silence about it in the foreign media. Since
the end of last year, the number of criminal cases under Article 407
(unauthorised leaving of a military unit, or SZCh) and Article 408
(desertion) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine has remained stable at
approximately 17,000 per month. In the first eight months of 2025,
142,711 criminal proceedings under these articles were registered, and a
total of 265,843 cases have been registered in Ukraine since the
beginning of the full-scale invasion as of September 1, 2025.
To at least somewhat reduce this flow, the Ukrainian parliament on
September 4 supported in the first reading Bill No. 13260, which
reinstates criminal liability for SZCh, in the first reading.
Previously, it was possible to avoid prosecution by voluntarily
returning to military service. This provision was extended several times
until it expired on August 30. Now, the bill proposes removing the
court's ability to apply mitigating measures. In his September interview
with Sky News, the supreme butcher stated that Ukraine no longer sends
its military personnel for training abroad, where so many soldiers
disappeared from training grounds and received protection.
The nature of this phenomenon is revealed in verified voices exclusively
published by the Assembly this summer. We are quoting here testimony
from the Vinnytsia region about sending former SZCh personnel to assault
units to certain death:
"Well, dear friends and brothers in misfortune, I've found myself in
this hell for the second time.
This time,[I was grabbed while I was]not on a hike[to cross the border],
but just on the street. The cops chased me, cut me off, and then[took
me]to the Military Law Enforcement Service. This happened not due to
good life, I went to work and got caught.
And then it was sheer hell, there's no other way to describe it.
They treated us worse than animals, smoking[was only allowed]under guard
at strict times,[there were]no phones, calls, etc., I won't speak about
food or lodging, though I can't say I was really hungry.
Then, one morning, representatives[of the army]arrive, they speak
beautifully, and invite you to serve the fatherland, almost everyone
refuses, then a bus[comes]and off[you are sent]to the distribution center.
Barracks, guards with automatic rifles all around the perimeter, several
people at a time go to the store under guard,[army]representatives
again, and you refuse, but they still take you and send you to the
barracks to await deployment.
Formations are held almost every two hours, and you wait with your butt
clenched, waiting for your brigade to be called, hoping to stay in the
barracks for another day and finally get out of this mess.
There are other guys around you, the eyes darting around, and these eyes
are searching for a way out just like you, but the more you wander
around the grounds, the more this hope fades...
Everyone understands perfectly well that all the brigades you've been
assigned to are Airborne Assault Forces, and you likely don't have long
to live. As one guy said: "Boys, you won't have basic military training,
three or four days at most to get your act together and then off you go."
I don't know how to describe it in one word. I've heard so many stories
about what's happening at the front, it's just awful...
I escaped, miraculously escaped! I won't tell you how, I'll just say it
was incredibly brazen and stupid, but it worked out. I just realised I
had no choice and had to take the risk.
I didn't make it to military unit 7020[a reserve battalion in the Gaisyn
district], I was in the village of Rakhny. You can't escape there just
like that, unless you try at night. Things have changed a bit recently.
Before, the guys said, you could call a taxi, go to the store and leave.
Everyone who was there was SZCh. The guy tried to make it there, but
they stuck him in the 225th[Assault Regiment]. I refused everywhere,
they literally dragged me by the hand.
What I want to say to those already in SZCh: guys, don't take
unnecessary risks. You never know where you'll end up a second time and
how it might end.
Peace and goodness to all. Sooner or later this will all end, I'd like
it to end sooner, of course."
The fate of those fugitives who were apprehended while attempting to
cross the border after escaping is particularly unfortunate. This
interlocutor from Odessa was captured in the summer right on the border
with the unrecognised Transnistrian Moldavian Republic, where two months
later a Ukrainian border guard shot dead a civilian refugee:
"Where I was, there was a waist-high fence, then a barbed-wire fence,
and beyond that a ditch. I simply jumped over the waist-high fence. The
fence was made of mesh, with barbed wire at waist level and above it. I
simply climbed over it, without throwing anything from above. I grabbed
the top support with my hand, stepped on the barbed wire at waist level,
and climbed up, then jumped off. The border guards were even surprised
that the fence was undamaged. All I had to do was climb out of the ditch
and be free, but the border guards spotted me and pulled me out. I ended
up, very unluckily, about 50 meters from where they were on duty. I was
jumping off the fence, they heard me, shouted "stop," and I ran and fell
into a ditch about five meters high and six meters wide. The result: a
broken rib or a crack. I wasn't in the hospital, so I don't know for
sure. They took me to the Military Law Enforcement Service, where I
spent three days. When they took me to the investigator, I escaped and
am now recovering at home for the next attempt."
One fugitive mobilised man living in Kharkov eloquently tells about
social status of new army reinforcements:
"It's tough for the homeless now; the military recruitment offices are
basically rounding up precisely them... I recently took a ride in a
minibus myself. There were two drug addicts, two homeless people, one is
just a poor man, and one character talking to himself. Basically, as I
understand it, it's because they try to round them up in places where
they're not very visible, early in the morning, in courtyards, behind
garages, and so on, and that's how they're gathering such a contingent.
It's a real zoo, the homeless people in it are the most normal. The
recruitment, of course, is amazing; you can really feel the victory so
close at hand. A year ago, they'd let people go just like that if they
saw a problem. But now they're rounding up everyone; only the
problematic ones remain. There are no longer any willing fighters;
everything is hanging on by a thin thread and could collapse at any
moment, although the actor[Zelensky]and his gang don't understand
that.[...]There are only a few left who have been fighting since 2022.
Everyone's looking for a way to get out of the service under any pretext
- 200,000 SZCh persons. Those who are younger and have arms and legs
will run away. What's left are the poor souls and homeless people with a
host of illnesses. They're our only hope, but something tells me you
won't last long fighting them. They're unmotivated; it's just harder for
a homeless person to escape, and they have nowhere to go, and they're
afraid. So they stay. The only thing they can do is drink on leave.
Plus, unfortunately, homeless people are often sent to bad units, from
which it's simply harder to escape."
The following story by a warehouse worker in Kharkov about his colleague
who returned to the city last year, having left the Zaporozhye front
with his entire company and commander, also illustrates how the
dispersion and passivity of the runaway Ukrainian soldiers prevents them
from realising their revolutionary potential, despite their enormous
numbers and combat experience:
"They busified him in '23. He was there for about a year. We thought it
was the end for him; he's quiet and intimidated all his life. He shows
up - everyone's in shock. He's doing fine. He's an orphan from an
orphanage. Before the war, he bought a room in a communal apartment. No
one's looking for him. He doesn't go anywhere. He doesn't work. He has
some money. He probably cashed it out. And how much does he need anyway?
Just for food. He runs out to the store in the evening and sits quietly
in his room. There's always a choice. And in general, only dogs serve;
people work."
Mass desertion from the army has deep roots in Ukrainian history, dating
back to the settlement of the country's eastern regions in the 17th
century. The vast steppe territories known as the Wild Fields, along
with administrative-ordered settlers from Central Russia, were colonised
by Ukrainian Cossacks and peasants fleeing the oppression by Polish
feudal lords, determined to obey no one but their elected atamans. For a
time, they had autonomy and privileges from the Russian government. This
legacy later expressed itself vividly during the social revolution of
1917-1918 following the collapse of the tsarist army. The dialectic of
history partially reproduces the two previous stages of class struggle
under new conditions.
However, the description of the situation in the United States by WSWS
is clearly applicable to the current situation in Ukraine:
"The great danger is that there remains a vast gulf between the scope of
these conspiracies and the level of popular awareness of what is
happening. This must change. Trump's actions do not command broad
popular support. The American people as a whole do not want dictatorship
or fascism. The general sentiment is one of opposition, but this must be
mobilized, consciously and collectively."
As long as Ukrainian deserters remain an amorphous and silent mass,
living for the moment and trusting no one but their closest friends, the
millstones of death will continue to turn as more and more people are
kidnapped instead of those escaped.
https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/2025/09/30/ukraines-voiceless-army-ukrainian-deserters-speak-out/
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