Twice the number of deserted deserted by the Russian army in 2025 compared to 2024, according to an investigation into the OSINT project Frontelligence Insight. If the current pace is stored, at least 70,000 people will escape from the Russian units, or 1/10 of the entire Russian contingent in Ukraine.
FRONTELLIGENCE INSIGHT analysts have studied tens of thousands of personal affairs of Russian military, collected by the Ukrainian I Want to Live Project, as well as internal documents of a number of Russian units-the Second Motor Division, the 30th Motor Brigade, the 291 Motor Lot, the Army.
By the summer of 2025, the cases of desertion and unauthorized leaving the parts on a monthly base increased six times compared to January 2024, shows one of the documents containing a list of 13.8 thousand such cases with names, units for the period from 2022. The cases, soon this growth is resumed. According to the document for the first half of July in 2025, 3,400 cases of desertion were registered, while for the whole previous year 3200.
One of the documents of the 30th motorway brigade of the Second General Army, you cover 2000 cases of desertion in the period from April 2023 to March 2025, shows that the number of deserters per month has jumped six times from the beginning of 2025. The incident.
If earlier the Russian military had escaped mainly from the military bases, then in 2025 they left the front or did not return from treatment in hospitals, writes Frontelligence Insight.
Of the 13.8 thousand cases of desertion described in the first document, 11.3 thousand are in people who have signed a contract, 2.4 thousand – mobilized and nine cases are in another category, including recruits. In the 30th Brigade, most cases (73.6%) have concluded a contract, and every fifth escaped (22.1%) was a prisoner.
The average age of the deserter is 37 years, writes Frontelligence Insight. Most often, people aged 35-44 years are running, then at the age of 25-34, according to the authors of the study, this is likely to reflect the structure of the Russian army.
Different, including out -of -court penalties, are used to combat desertion. In some units, torture is used, they are staged and real -life are arranged. The efficiency of measures to fight desertion is uneven, with some part demonstrating high performance of the refugees. For example, the internal documents of the 144th separate motorcycle brigade show that from 1.4,000 deserters from March 2022 to March 2025, over 1.1 thousand were detained and returned and 256 are still wanted.
Nevertheless, the number of escapes is growing. It has not yet reached a crisis level, but the increase in cases, regardless of the risk of harsh punishment, shows a deep problem, analysts write.
By the end of 2024, the Russian army had deserted 50.5 thousand troops, writes Frontelligence Insight, citing an internal presentation of the Russian MoD. The data also confirms the Telegram Channel “Important Stories”, which writes that the escapes from the army are at least 49,000 people.
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