Paul Goble
Staunton, Mar. 26 – Between 2024 and 2025, the desertion rate in the Russian army nearly doubled, with at least 70,000 or ten percent of the total Russian force in Ukraine having fled from their units, according to Ukraine’s OSINT Insight portal which provides estimates Kyiv officials have made about the state of the Russian invasion army.
The Ukrainian source adds that Moscow convicted “more than 18,000 people” of desertion between February 2022 and August 2025, handing out sentences of as much as 13 years, although this judicial effort has not slowed the flow of deserters (severreal.org/a/nu-ya-i-vystrelil-v-sebya-dezertirov-iz-rossiyskoy-armii-stanovitsya-vse-bolshe/33710680.html).
According to the Idite Lesom project which helps those who want to avoid service or escape from it, the volume of inquiries they have received increased by 30 percent at the start of this year, from what was already a high baseline if the OSINT figures are assumed to be at least roughly accurate.
In reporting this Ukrainian finding, the SeverReal portal notes that “there are no precise figures on the total number of Russian military personnel who have fled abroad” but that “experts estimate the figure “to be in the low thousands.” Initially, many went to Kazakhstan, but now Armenia has become the center for those who have deserted and fled.
Russian deserters in that country have set up an organization called The Hard Sign to help those who want to flee. It provides information on how to do it and supports those who have fled the war once they reach Armenia with finding housing and work and ensuring they have the necessary documentation.
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