Russia’s army has suffered at least 50,000 desertions since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, according to leaked documents. The information was contained in reports from 2024 belonging to Russia’s Ministry of Defence.

Putin’s army has suffered massive casualties in just under four years of brutal warfare. Over one million troops have been killed or injured, according to the latest data from Ukraine’s military. Russian commanders appear to have little regard for the lives of their soldiers, regular sending them on suicide missions.

In an attempt to stop desperate soldiers fleeing the slaughter, Russian commanders are reportedly deploying so-called barrier troops to police the battlefield.

These military police are authorised to shoot and kill anyone trying to make a run for it. However, despite all the measures to force Russian soldiers to fight, tens of thousands have managed to go AWOL.

Yevgeny Kochegin, head of the Volgograd-based watchdog group Dozor, says the most common cause for desertion is simply fear and self-preservation.

He says few soldiers are motivated to jack it in for any higher ideological reasons.

“I wish I could tell you these soldiers are fleeing out of anti-war conviction,” he told RFE/RL’s Kavkaz.Realii

“Sometimes it’s just fear — when your regiment’s about to be sent in as cannon fodder and you know you probably won’t come back.

“That doesn’t make them anti-war activists; it just means they understand what’s happening. They’re sane people who can see how this ends — and they don’t want to be part of it.”

Putin’s army has scoured Russian prisons for recruits, signing up tens of thousands of convicts.

However, these recruits can be notoriously unreliable, often killing their own comrades and absconding. In the latest such incident, nine Russian convicts from the Leningrad region shot and killed their convoy driver as they were being transferred to the front, before making good their escape.