By Galina Korol | 2024-10-17

KYIV -- Russian men increasingly are choosing to flee rather than face a high chance of being killed or wounded in the invasion of Ukraine, records show.

This year, Russia has processed a record number of legal cases dealing with military desertion and absence without leave (AWOL), according to Mediazona, a Russian independent media outlet.

In just the first seven months of this year, authorities filed more AWOL cases than in all of 2023.

"Since the beginning of 2024, 5,204 AWOL cases have been filed, compared to just 5,096 such cases in all of 2023," Mediazona reported August 12.

The outlet collected the data from Russian court websites. Thus, this count includes only cases that made it to court.

By this past spring, Russian military courts were handing down about 800 sentences per month on cases dealing with AWOL, insubordination and desertion -- about 40 verdicts in a single workday.

"After every 'Kharkiv in three days' or 'Kyiv in three days,' there's a new wave of black bags and wounded -- and along with them, a new wave of deserters," said Ivan Chuvilyayev, a spokesperson for the Idite Lesom (Get Lost) movement, referring to common slogans promising easy victory.

"Russian military personnel ... make up their minds to desert simply because they don't want to participate in this war and no one asked them what they wanted," Chuvilyayev told Kontur.

"If the draft bureau knows about you and you live in Russia, you can be sent to the front and wiped out at any time," he said.

Escaping the 'meat grinder'

Soldiers who run away are most often those who have been wounded on the front and then obtain leave after going to the hospital, Chuvilyayev continued.

They no longer want to return to war, but the authorities do not intend to release them on medical grounds.

At home on leave, "suddenly a tiny window opens through which they can escape from this 'meat grinder,'" Chuvilyayev said, describing poorly planned Russian attacks that have resulted in heavy casualties for Russian troops.

"Now what we're finding is that soldiers on the front don't expect other soldiers to return from leave," said Alexander Finiarel, a journalist and nonresident fellow at the Russia Program at George Washington University.

This is because "people ultimately understand that everything they're being told about this war is a lie, that there are no 'Ukronazis' in Ukraine and that Russian soldiers are just being used as fodder there," he told Kontur.

Finiarel said he spoke with multiple deserters who had fled the front.

"About 90% want to leave. Everyone is tired. No one wants to fight," Finiarel quoted one of his interviewees as saying.

"One guy who had been serving in Storm-Z [a unit of prison inmates] just called a taxi from the deployment site and had it take him to Donetsk," he said.

"But in general you can have a taxi take you to Belgorod or anywhere you want to go -- it all depends on how much money you have," Finiarel said. "The most important thing is to not take a weapon with you and ... to say that you have no connection to the army at all."

Get Lost encountered a case where deserters masqueraded as operators of a "meat wagon" -- a vehicle used to carry the dead.

They "helped almost 50 comrades. They took them out disguised as the wounded and the killed -- in black bags, of course," Get Lost founder Grigory Sverdlin wrote on X January 23.

More conscientious objectors likely

Desertions tend to spike whenever the Russians try to open a new front or conduct mass assaults.

Fatigue and disillusionment after nearly three years of war are other factors that drive attempts to escape.

Troops complain about supply problems and orders from commanders that would mean mass Russian casualties if carried out.

So many Russian men have died or fled that the army and Kremlin-backed mercenary forces are recruiting women too.

Moreover, motivation within the Russian military hinges largely on money.

"The people who are now going into battle are mainly those with major financial problems," said Finiarel.

The potential soldiers or mercenaries "see the huge compensation, and they go to the front ... with the attitude 'I'm going to die, but at least my family will get a pile of money,'" he said.

Having tapped its pool of citizens and economic migrants, Russia is courting foreigners living abroad.

Now Yemenis, who most likely were conned into joining the Russian army under false pretenses, are asking their government to save them from death.

"It's unclear how many people ultimately ended up on the front in Ukraine ... but a reporter doing an investigation for the international Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project was able to join a WhatsApp group called Stranded in Russia," the Moscow Times reported October 7.

"The group has 150 members; 74 of them wrote a letter to Yemen's ambassador in Moscow with a plea to take them away from the front line."

Russia has in the past lured residents of countries including Nepal, Sri Lanka, India, Cuba and some African nations to the Ukrainian front.

"The pool of people who are willing to go to war for a lot of money isn't unlimited, and it's coming closer to running dry," Finiarel said. "In the end, the supply of this fodder will run out."