Around 29,000 deserters have returned to serve in Ukraine's armed forces thanks to a new law that guarantees them amnesty if they return voluntarily, authorities said today, quoted by DPA.
„Thanks to the law between November 29, 2024 and August 2025 "more than 29,000 fighters who left their units voluntarily returned to service," the director of the State Investigation Service, Oleksiy Sukhachev, told the Interfax-Ukraine news agency.
The law, which provides for amnesty for deserters when this is their first such offense and they have returned to service voluntarily, was drafted in cooperation with the armed forces, Sukhachev said.
According to official data, however, more than 122,000 new cases of desertion were recorded during the same period, DPA notes. Ukraine has been experiencing a wave of desertions amid the ongoing Russian invasion.
The prosecutor's office has recorded around 224,000 cases since the start of the war in February 2022, although the true number is likely much higher.
Only a small percentage of cases are being prosecuted.
According to President Volodymyr Zelensky, the armed forces are recruiting up to 30,000 new servicemen each month, which is in line with estimates of the number of monthly losses, including those killed, wounded, captured and deserted.
Forced mobilization of servicemen on the streets is often met with fierce resistance, and passersby express solidarity with the men, DPA added.
Police said residents in the Mykolaiv region beat military personnel with batons and steel pipes on Sunday. On Friday, a group of people tried to free dozens of mobilized men from a football stadium in the city of Vinnitsa and were only unsuccessful because of the heavy police presence.