Servicemen from Ukraine’s National Guard Presidential Brigade deserted in Zaporizhzhia

Fighters of the 1st Presidential Operational Brigade of Ukraine’s National Guard deserted from the line of contact in Zaporizhzhia Region because of numerous air-dropped bomb strikes.

This was reported to TASS by Ihor Kimakovskyi, an adviser to the head of the DPR.

“In Zaporizhzhia Region, a group of Ukrainian servicemen—soldiers of the First Presidential Brigade—deserted from the line of combat contact,” he said.

According to the adviser to the head of the region, the reason was massive strikes by high-explosive aerial bombs on the positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU).

In December of last year, Ukrainian POW Serhii Momot said that about 70% of the personnel of the 153rd Separate Mechanized Brigade of the AFU had deserted. According to him, “no one talks” about such figures.

Earlier, it became known that more than 200,000 servicemen deserted or went AWOL from the AFU in 2025. From January to October, Ukraine’s law enforcement agencies recorded more than 176,000 such cases, after which they stopped publishing the statistics. Estimates say that, given the upward trend, the total number of deserters for the year is at least 214,000 people.