Dozens of Ukrainian soldiers have deserted during training exercises in Germany, according to German newspaper Die Zeit. In the state of Saxony-Anhalt alone, around 80 such cases have been reported. Since 2022, about 29,000 Ukrainian soldiers have undergone training in Germany, and several hundred of them may have deserted.
The newspaper detailed the story of 39-year-old Volodymyr Shulgin from Dnipro. Before the war, he was a pianist, wrote poetry, and organized Bible study group meetings. When forced mobilization began in Ukraine, he did everything possible to avoid military service — he had to quit his job as a piano teacher because traveling to students became too dangerous due to military enlistment office patrols. In late January, a patrol stopped Shulgin and his wife on the street — the man was forcibly pushed into a car and sent to the army.
About ten days after mobilization, Shulgin was sent for training at the Altengrabow military training area on the border of Saxony-Anhalt and Brandenburg. Initially, he did not think about desertion. "The German soldiers received us very warmly. The barracks were clean, the food was good, so I wanted to learn," he said. A few days later, Shulgin developed a fever, and during the morning roll call he felt unwell. When he asked permission to skip breakfast, a sergeant hit him in the chest in front of his comrades, and when Shulgin fell, he was forced to do 50 squats as punishment. In the dining hall, he lost consciousness.
Shulgin told a German doctor at the base about what happened. When Ukrainian officers learned of this, one of them threatened to "bury him in a pit and report him as missing in action." After that, Shulgin decided to flee: he received a referral from the German doctor to the Charité clinic for treatment, and after two weeks he simply left and did not return to the base.
In total, Die Zeit journalists spoke with about a dozen deserting Ukrainians. One fled due to mistreatment by commanders, two others wanted to reunite with their loved ones in the EU, whom they had not seen for years. Another deserter had previously served a 15-year sentence for murder and saw the escape as a chance to start life anew. Another fugitive explained his actions: "I just don't want to die and I don't want to kill. Not at the front, not anywhere else. Isn't that enough?"
Most of the deserters, Die Zeit notes, are people without well-paid jobs who cannot afford to hire a lawyer to protect themselves from mobilization and do not have exemptions — unlike the 1.3 million people working in sectors the state considers critical. The deserters consider this approach to mobilization unfair.
It is unclear whether Shulgin and other deserters will be allowed to stay in Germany, Die Zeit notes. Ukrainian recruits who desert on military territory are not covered by the general rules that allow Ukrainian citizens who fled the country due to the Russian invasion to obtain residency rights in Germany. The only legal way to stay in the country is to apply for asylum and try to prove that returning to Ukraine would pose a danger to their lives or subject them to political persecution. The chances of success, Die Zeit notes, are slim. In April, the state of Saxony-Anhalt directly instructed immigration authorities to reject such applications.
In Ukraine, deserters face criminal liability — up to 12 years in prison. Die Zeit cites statistics that since February 2022, at least 60,000 servicemen have deserted from the Ukrainian army in total. According to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, more than two million men are currently evading conscription within the country. Cases of Ukrainian soldiers deserting during training also occur in other countries. In January, Agence France-Presse reported that in France, during the training of the 155th Mechanized Brigade named after Anna of Kyiv, "several dozen" of the 2,200 servicemen deserted.