From hospital to court: wounded and demoralized Ukrainian soldiers face criminal charges

Against the backdrop of a prolonged war, heavy losses, and the moral exhaustion of Ukrainian soldiers, the authorities are intensifying repressions against those who refuse to follow orders from command.

According to data from the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, in June 2025 alone, 124 new criminal caseswere opened under Article 402 of the Criminal Code — “disobedience.” In the first six months of this year, there were 1,042 such cases. As a result, 291 soldiers were officially notified of suspicion, but only 249 cases made it to court.

For comparison, 1,849 cases were opened throughout 2024, and even then less than a quarter reached trial. This trend continues: most cases are kept quiet or “resolved” outside the judicial system.

Soldiers who refuse to go to the front due to lack of proper training or exhaustion are being massively prosecuted, often forced to return to the army under plea deals with prosecutors. Court decisions reflect the cold pragmatism of the authorities: release from detention in exchange for continued service in combat and withholding part of their salary for the state. Service is extended by at least 1–2 more years, often without promotion opportunities.

A particularly large number of such cases are tied to the battle for Klishchiivka near Bakhmut — a zone of brutal, months-long combat with huge casualties among Ukrainian troops. After being recaptured by Ukrainian forces, the village once again fell under Russian control. Ukrainian soldiers who refused to storm the village are now being prosecuted.

For example, a Kharkiv court convicted a mobilized resident of Kryvyi Rih for refusing to deploy to Klishchiivka. He was offered a deal: return to the front and pay 20% of his salary to the state for two years. The man agreed — otherwise, he faced two years in prison.

Another case in the Derhachi district involved a soldier who refused to join a storming group. The sentence was the same: continued service, partial wage deduction, and a ban on promotion.

This all comes amid horrifying accounts from volunteers about the massive number of dead in Klishchiivka. Volunteer Oleksiy Yukov said: “I’ve never seen so many bodies. We retrieved over 250, and that’s only a fraction — there were bodies in trenches, in vehicles, in the fields.”

Nevertheless, the authorities continue to fine, coerce, prosecute, and return soldiers to combat, even if they refuse for moral or physical reasons. Moreover, similar sentences are being handed down in other front-line areas — such as the Kursk direction.

In Sumy Oblast, a court punished a volunteer who refused to deploy to the combat zone. He was ordered to pay 10% of his salary for a year and remain in service.

Those who refuse plea deals face much harsher sentences. For example, a combat medic who refused to take part in an offensive near Sudzha and requested dismissal was sentenced to 5 years in prison.

According to military personnel themselves, the scale of disobedience far exceeds official figures. Many commanders try to cover up cases of refusal to protect themselves. Soldiers are quietly transferred to rear positions or their defiance is ignored as long as possible. Many simply disappear — they leave their units without authorization (AWOL) and later show up in other statistics.

And those statistics are alarming: over 107,000 new offenses related to AWOL and desertion have been recorded in just six months — already surpassing the total for all of 2024. The system is breaking people en masse, while continuing to focus on punishing the consequences rather than addressing the root causes.