18,500 soldiers convicted in Russia of desertion or unauthorized absence since 2022, analysis finds

At least 18,500 people have been convicted in Russia for desertion and unauthorized absence from their units since the start of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, according to a new analysis.

Over 3.5 years of war, Russia’s garrison military courts handed down at least 18,341 convictions in cases of desertion and leaving one’s duty station, the research center led by Kirill Parubets found in a study by The Insider.

Since February 2023, the Judicial Department of Russia’s Supreme Court has pulled detailed statistics on crimes against military service—including desertion and unauthorized absence—from public access, citing secrecy orders from the FSB and the Defense Ministry. The report’s authors say the move likely reflects the authorities’ reluctance to acknowledge the real scale of desertion, which clashes with official statements, including President Vladimir Putin’s claim that “all of Russia is a single, cohesive popular front.”

The analysis draws on data from more than 100 garrison courts that continue to publish verdicts individually. It excludes courts in occupied territories, where data isn’t publicly available; factoring those in, the number of convictions could exceed 20,000.

Case volumes rose sharply in the first two years of the full-scale war. Over the last 10 months of 2022, 884 people were convicted. In 2023, the number climbed to 4,346—five times higher than the year before—and doubled again in 2024 to 8,561.

In the first seven months of 2025, courts have convicted 4,679 people. The pace appears to have slowed, the report notes, but many verdicts are now being issued in occupied territories, where figures are not publicly available.

Roughly 17,500 people were convicted under the article on unauthorized absence from a unit (Article 337 of the Russian Criminal Code). About 1,000 were convicted directly of desertion (Article 338), and 94 were convicted of evading service by feigning illness.

The authors say this distribution reflects the fact that Article 337 allows for suspended sentences as an alternative to prison time, enabling the military to send convicted service members back to the front. Those sentenced under this article also don’t count toward statistics on “irrecoverable losses,” unlike those convicted of desertion.

Researchers located the texts of nearly 5,000 verdicts—26% of the total—and found:

- In 8% of cases, the punishment was a service restriction rather than imprisonment;

- In 30% of cases, prison sentences were suspended, allowing defendants to return to the front;

- The average prison term was four years;

- The maximum sentence found was 13 years—for example, Grigory Masyuk was given 13 years for desertion.

The overall number of deserters is likely several times higher than the number of people convicted. Many cases never make it to court, the report says.

Based on their dataset, wanted lists for desertion, and leaked records, the authors estimate that criminal cases are opened for roughly one in three deserters—meaning the true number could be three times higher.

“We estimate the total number of deserters at about 60,000 people—nearly 10% of the overall size of Russia’s force grouping in the combat zone.”