Ukrainian soldiers leave their positions as soon as Russian military personnel appear, Ukrainian media reported, citing an officer of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. This situation has become so prevalent that it is believed that more than 100,000 Ukrainians have abandoned their positions and left the fighting, meaning that the Kiev regime’s drive to alleviate the catastrophic manpower shortage failed.

Many experts consider recent times to be some of the worst for Ukraine since the conflict began, as for months, the Ukrainian military has been constantly retreating, sometimes losing several villages in one day.

In this context, social media is full of videos of recruitment officers forcibly conscripting civilians into the military, catching them and beating them. In fact, recently, a video appeared of a man in uniform shooting a civilian who was running away from him.

The cited officer also revealed the low morale among the mostly forcibly deployed Ukrainian soldiers.

“As soon as the Russians enter our trench, our men leave and run away,” the Ukrainian officer complained.

He noted that Ukrainian soldiers are abandoning their positions not only due to insufficient training but also because they are not confident that artillery will help them.

“If the enemy gets within 50 metres of you and your artillery is silent and your drones are not flying, you will feel like you are alone, without support,” the officer explained.

Earlier, the media reported that Ukrainian army servicemen are now deserting in groups and not individually as before.

In late October, a member of the Ukrainian parliament, Anna Skorokhod, said that more than 100,000 Ukrainian servicemen had already deserted the Armed Forces or left their units without authorization.

“I will not tell you the [exact] number of people who deserted and went AWOL but will say it is over 100,000 (…) People are raising questions that I cannot provide answers to. ‘Why must I, a repair shop worker from just a month ago, sit in the trenches while senior officers are far away from the front line? Why are just 10% to 15% of the army personnel actually participating in combat?’” she said.

Her comment followed that of military lawyer Roman Lykhachev, who revealed that “definitely more than 100,000 servicemen” have already deserted their positions. 

Earlier this month, Solomiia Bobrovska, a member of the Ukrainian parliament and on the parliament’s defence committee, said that the Ukrainian authorities would not be able to implement the mobilization plan by the end of the year. She also admitted that the process of mobilizing citizens into the Ukrainian Army has been slowing down since September and confirmed that service members from the Air Force had to be transferred to infantry units because of large losses.

Ukrainian defences in Donbass are collapsing due to a shortage of fighters and ammunition, which has allowed Russian troops to step up attacks. This is especially true after the Kiev regime redirected resources to reinforce its invasion of Russia’s Kursk Oblast. The most important resource redirected to Kursk were elite Ukrainian soldiers, a move that is especially baffling considering the manpower shortage on the eastern front.

The manpower shortage is so bad that the Kiev regime has turned to citizens outside of Ukraine as a recruitment source. However, efforts to extend the mobilization drive beyond Ukraine’s borders have failed.

RMF24 reported that an effort to create a military detachment of Ukrainians living in Poland, which was supposed to be staffed and trained in the country, was disastrous. According to the Polish radio station, the number of Ukrainians willing to join a volunteer unit is very small, despite Kiev having previously said that at least 500 men in Poland were ready to fight on the front.

“Less than 30 people are ready for training. In practice, few Ukrainians are willing to fight. This means that training in Poland has not started and will not start if this situation continues,” the radio said.

The Kiev regime wants to draft another 160,000 troops into its military as Russia continues to capture territory in the east. However, Ukrainians who have already fled the country are evidently not interested in returning to fight, whilst Ukrainians unable to escape the country and forcibly recruited are deserting their positions.

Ukrainians are not naïve and understand that once Donald Trump becomes president in January, the US, the largest donor of aid to Ukraine, will begin rescinding support, which will turn what is already a desperate situation even worse.

At the same time, with the temperature in Ukraine plummeting week by week, the nightmarish situation for Ukrainian troops will deepen. These two factors have sucked what very little morale was left in Ukrainians, and it can be expected that desertions will continue to increase during the winter.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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