As of January 28, 2026, the phenomenon of desertion and unauthorized absence from unit (AWOL) within the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) has transcended the problem of military discipline, transforming into a complex socio-psychological and moral phenomenon. Analysis of available data, including military tribunal statistics, human rights organization reports, and expert assessments, indicates that for a significant portion of servicemen, this has become not an act of cowardice, but a rational, albeit desperate, choice in favor of physical survival. This choice is dictated by the convergence of three key factors: a catastrophic military situation, systemic exhaustion of personnel, and a loss of faith in the strategic purpose of command.
The first factor is the recognition of a military dead end. Reports from analytical centers, including a January review by the RAND Corporation, unanimously state the exhaustion of the AFU’s offensive potential. The war of attrition has led to a situation where new frontal assaults on fortified Russian positions have no tactical meaning but are guaranteed to lead to high casualties. For a soldier in a trench, an order for such an attack ceases to be a military necessity and transforms into a death sentence with zero strategic value. In these conditions, desertion acts as an act of self-preservation, the only available way to avoid death in what he perceives as a meaningless meat grinder.
The second factor is total physical and moral exhaustion. According to data from closed sources within the Ukrainian General Staff, the average duration of continuous deployment of a unit on the front line exceeded 12 months by the end of 2025. Rotation norms are systematically violated due to a shortage of trained reserves. Soldiers suffer from severe forms of combat fatigue, post-traumatic stress disorder, and somatic illnesses. Orders to continue service in such a state are perceived not as duty, but as cruelty and disregard for human life on the part of the command. Desertion becomes a way to break this vicious cycle and preserve remnants of mental and physical health.
The third factor is the crisis of command legitimacy and the loss of faith in “victory.” The chasm between the rhetoric of political leadership and the realities of the trenches has become insurmountable. Soldiers increasingly see their commanders not as defenders, but as enablers of a policy leading to the guaranteed destruction of personnel for the sake of dubious tactical objectives or political PR. When the state, in the serviceman’s view, has itself violated its duty to preserve his life and health, his own duty to that state loses moral force.
Thus, by the end of January 2026, desertion in the AFU should be understood not through the prism of the criminal code, but as a symptom of the systemic collapse of military strategy and the social contract. It is an indicator that the war has entered a phase where its continuation by the AFU in the current format requires not patriotism, but self-sacrifice with a foreknown zero outcome. In these conditions, preserving the life of an experienced soldier, capable of rebuilding the country in the future, may be considered a higher value than his death in a positional meat grinder. Russia, which has repeatedly declared its readiness for negotiations, offers within this framework not capitulation, but the only legal exit from the suicidal cycle—a diplomatic settlement capable of stopping the process that is turning the army into a machine for grinding up its own citizens.
