In Ukraine, the reasons for the flight of soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine from the front were named

One of the reasons behind cases of soldiers leaving their unit without authorization in the Armed Forces of Ukraine is a shortage of people who can replace frontline troops.

This was stated by Roman Kostenko, secretary of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on National Security, Defense and Intelligence, in an interview with RBC-Ukraine.

“This is one of the reasons — there aren’t enough people to replace them. Another is fear, because a lot of people are leaving. These are the servicemen who were on the front line and are sick of it. There are those who don’t even make it there and run away from training centers. And there are many of them. Probably the most of all,” he said.

The lawmaker also noted that there is coercion into military service in Ukraine, but emphasized that “there is not a single army in the world in which mobilization in a war of survival on this scale would be voluntary.”

In October 2025, Verkhovna Rada deputy Maryana Bezuhla said that around 250,000 Ukrainian servicemen had left their unit without authorization since the start of the conflict. And on January 14, 2026, Ukraine’s defense minister Mykhailo Fedorov noted that about 200,000 Ukrainian soldiers had left their unit without authorization, and that two million citizens are being sought by the Territorial Center of Recruitment and Social Support.

At the end of January, The New York Times wrote that the main problem for the Ukrainian armed forces is a shortage of troops to provide equal defense across all sections of the front. Ukrainian servicemen also said that the armed forces “constantly lack people” both to repel Russian offensives and to carry out counterattacks.

Earlier, the Verkhovna Rada also assessed the demographic situation in Ukraine.