Mr. Zelensky admits to increasing desertions in the Ukrainian army.

According to RIA Novosti on January 3, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky admitted that the number of desertions from units in the Armed Forces of Ukraine has increased, based on last year's results.

“The number of servicemen illegally leaving units has increased in 2024,” RBC-Ukraine quoted the Ukrainian leader as saying.

At the same time, President Zelensky said that desertions in the Armed Forces of Ukraine were due to fatigue in the Ukrainian army after a long period of fighting, as well as a lack of human reserves for rotation in combat units.

Earlier, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Washington and its allies agreed on the need to mobilize Ukrainian citizens aged 18-25 to join the army. Videos of the mobilization of force were widely circulated on the Internet, in which representatives of the Ukrainian military registration and enlistment agency often used force against men of military age and forcibly took them away in minibuses.

Meanwhile, Forbes magazine reported that the 155th Mechanized Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine disintegrated even before approaching Pokrovsk and suffered heavy losses in the battles for the city.

“Ukraine is strengthening Pokrovsk. But one of the reinforcements, the newly formed 155th Mechanized Brigade – one of the few in the Ukrainian Armed Forces, equipped with German Leopard 2 tanks and French Caesar guns – began to disintegrate even before it arrived,” Forbes wrote.

The brigade's official strength is said to be around 5,800, but 1,700 of them left the unit without permission.

In addition, Forbes notes that even the servicemen from the new brigades of the Armed Forces who went to the front performed poorly in battle. Whole battalions of such units consisted of recruits who were ready to leave the ranks, if given the opportunity.

“Having just entered the battle near Pokrovsk, the 155th Mechanized Brigade suffered heavy losses, losing many tanks and other armored vehicles,” Forbes said.

In December 2024, the editor-in-chief of the Ukrainian portal Censor.net, Yury Butusov, said that nearly 1,000 people deserted the 155th Brigade immediately after arriving at the combat position. According to him, the formation of the brigade from the very first days was organizationally chaotic.