Russian Army Division Hit by Desertions of ‘Whole Regiment’: Report

An “entire regiment” of more than 1,000 soldiers left the 20th Guards Motor Rifle Division of the Russian Armed Forces stationed in Volgograd amid rising tensions in the Russia-Ukraine war, according to the Russian investigative outlet iStories.

Among those who deserted the division, also referred to as “sochniks,” which translates to “those who left their unit without permission,” were 26 junior officers, a major, and two lieutenant colonels. Newsweek reached out to the Ministry of Defense for the Russian Federation for comment via email.

Moscow is continuing to see high numbers of troops lost in battle, as Kyiv reports that 724,050 dead and wounded, and a recent daily average of around 1,500 casualties has become a pattern. Newsweek has yet to verify these figures.

The revelation that a large number of men deserted this division came after the outlet received a document, compiled by the command in April, from an unidentified source. It listed the names of those who left more than 1,000 days into Russia’s war with Ukraine, as reported by the independent news outlet Meduza.

The list of those who left includes individuals’ names, birth dates, patronymics and more, and identifies contract soldiers, mobilized soldiers, and conscripts.

The list names 858 contract soldiers, 150 mobilized soldiers, two conscripts, 26 junior officers, a major, two lieutenant colonels, and more.

As of September 2022, the maximum punishment for desertion from the armed forces under Article 338 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation is 15 years in prison.

Since February 2022, 11,700 cases of unauthorized abandonment of a unit‎ reached military courts, and the number of cases reaching the courts each month began increasing in March of last year, reaching a new high in nearly 1,000 cases per month in July 2024.

Soldiers who have been taken to military courts for unauthorized desertion are “more likely to receive suspended sentences than those convicted under other articles,” as a suspended sentence allows soldiers to return to the front lines sooner.

The headquarters of the 20th Guards Motor Rifle Division, located in the Kherson International Airport in the village of Chornobaivka, had been the subject of eight Ukrainian shelling attacks by March 2022.

Mikhail, a 28-year-old soldier who fled the army, told the outlet that the Ukrainian attacks resulted in approximately 500 deaths within the division in the summer of 2022, and many soldiers also deserted the division.

Mikhail said: “Everyone was tired, no one liked it. For example, we were in one place, north of Alexandrovka, and there was a front line along the canals. And you walk a kilometer [0.6 miles], and there is no one,” the serviceman added. “On one side of this kilometer, there are two people, on the other—three or four, that is, there was no front line as such. That is why mobilization was declared in principle.”

Although the loss of more than 1,000 men from this one division seems high, iStories said that Russia has at least two-dozen divisions participating in the war.

Nearly three years into the war with Ukraine, this is not the first time Russian soldiers have defected from their units in large numbers.

The Ukrainian military previously said that more than 18,000 Russian soldiers from the Southern Military District abandoned their posts, and Russia hit a new spike in desertions in July.

Russia has begun outsourcing its military command with the deployment of more than 10,000 North Korean soldiers to the front lines in eastern Russia.