By Olha Hembik | 2025-06-09

WARSAW -- They were offered high pay and patriotic glory. Instead, tens of thousands of Russian soldiers are running from the war.

At least 49,000 Russian fighting men have been declared deserters or absent without leave (AWOL) since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in 2022, according to an investigation by the independent outlet iStories published on May 20.

The figure reflects a growing trend: In the fourth year of the war, more soldiers are fleeing deployment sites or disappearing from the battlefield despite the Kremlin's efforts to entice them with generous pay.

The Mobilization DPR Telegram channel released a December file listing more than 26,000 AWOL troops from Russia's Southern Military District, iStories, citing two sources with access to internal military data, reported.

A separate list from the Ukrainian military intelligence program I Want To Live, allegedly obtained from within the Russian army's command, named 36,000 deserters.

In Russia, these deserters are known as "500s," military slang for troops who have refused to fight.

The Russian Defense Ministry has opened criminal cases for desertion and going AWOL against many of those named, but iStories suggests the real number of "500s" could exceed 50,000.

Russian troops most often desert after leaving hospitals or when opportunity presents itself on the front, as the war drags on with no end in sight.

Inhumane treatment

Serhii Hodlevsky, a local historian and officer in Ukraine's Volyn border detachment, has spent years studying Russia's wars.

The Russian military operates on a philosophy unseen in Ukraine or in the rest of Europe, he said.

"The essence of the Russian army is to curry favor with a dictator, while human life has never had any value," Hodlevsky told Kontur.

This worldview, he said, leads to orders to capture towns by arbitrary deadlines and to military songs with lyrics like "we pay the price," reflecting a disregard for soldiers' lives.

"During World War II, [the Soviet command] drove a million men into machine guns," Hodlevsky said, noting that the Russian army has not changed at all since then.

Harsh conditions are driving Russian soldiers to go AWOL despite high pay. But desertion may signal deeper unrest: revolts in Russia tend to build slowly before erupting.

President Vladimir Putin understands this, said Hodlevsky. To delay the return of disgruntled veterans to city streets, he prolongs the war and relies on "meat grinder assaults" -- costly, human-wave tactics.

"The deserters include the most pragmatic Russian service members -- those who don't want to die," Hodlevsky said.

'A crime against humanity'

Ilya Veitsler, 22, and Danil Arkhipov, 24, deserters from the Russian army, gained political asylum in France. In an interview with Le Monde published May 25, they explained why they fled.

Veitsler said he realized the criminal nature of the invasion only after reaching the front.

"I understood that this invasion of Ukraine was a crime against humanity, against a brother nation, so I refused to participate in it," Veitsler told Le Monde.

Veitsler has since given statements to United Nations investigators describing alleged Russian war crimes.

Another deserter, identified as Aleksei, told Le Monde that 80% of Russian soldiers "don't understand the goals of the [so-called] special operation," while only 20% believe government propaganda.

Volodymyr, call sign "Small," is sergeant major of the reconnaissance platoon in Ukraine's 93rd Kholodnyi Yar Separateв Mechanized Brigade. He has helped capture more than 100 Russian soldiers, including officers.

Many Russian troops show little motivation to fight, leading some to abandon their posts, he said.

"We've come across guys who actually said, 'We came here, we had a look around, and we have no idea why we were sent here or what we're doing here,'" Volodymyr told Kontur.

Running away on the front

The number of deserters from the Russian army is not yet high enough to have a major impact, Mykhaylo Zhyrokhov, a military analyst and historian, said.

"If you count 200,000 personnel fighting [in the Russian army], that adds up to a little over 1,000 deserters per month during the course of the full-scale war. That's not a lot," Zhyrokhov told Kontur.

However, he said the circumstances of going AWOL are telling. The army signs up many convicts who were sitting in prisons and penal colonies.

Those men consciously intend to flee once they reach a training center.

"If that fails, they desert at the front," Zhyrokhov said.

Convicts make up more than half of all deserters, he said.

But desertion may mask deeper problems in the Russian army. Some men listed as AWOL may have been killed to cover up crimes within their units, according to him.

"In some units they started the practice of taking a debit card from a fighter with his PIN [personal identification number] and then made him disappear," Zhyrokhov said, citing reports from the Sarmat battalion, where fighters allegedly formed organized crime groups who murdered fellow soldiers to steal their injury benefits.

"These men can be recorded in documents as AWOL," Zhyrokhov said.

Most Russian soldiers have little chance to flee and fear severe punishment, Veitsler and Arkhipov told Le Monde. In 2022, the Russian State Duma doubled the penalty for going AWOL during wartime to up to 10 years in prison.