Medium Ukraine (Politics)

[Mick Harper]

I'll post up this Substack piece in its entirety, from Shane Fitzgerald who I've had my differences with but is sound and sober on factual reports. Which this seems to be. A real tour d'horizon horrible. Worth a browse at least.

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Is Ukrainian Society Reaching Breaking Point?
Desertion crisis, deep disillusionment and distrust, busifications, and swamped on all sides – land, sea and air Shane Fitzgerald Aug 21

There are several indicators across multiple fronts that point to the fact that Ukrainian society may be heading towards some kind of breaking point. Let’s assess them.

The Desertion Crisis

A point of clarification is important here. Draft evasion is avoiding military service before entering it, going AWOL is when a soldier leaves their post without authorisation and desertion is leaving with no intention of returning.

In January, then-Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov revealed that 200,000 Ukrainian troops had gone AWOL at the time of his statement and that 2 million men were ‘wanted’ for evading military service.

By the end of October 2025, 255,000 prosecutions of soldiers for going AWOL had been registered since 2022. The figures for proceedings launched were 6,988 for 2022, 17,658 for 2023, 67,840 for 2024, and 162,500 for not even the whole of 2025. Thus, Ukraine was recording AWOL prosecutions in 2025 at approximately 28 times the monthly rate of 2022.

By September of 2025, the number desertion prosecutions stood at 53,954; 21,600 of these came during the first 10 months of 2025 alone. Russia claims, based on Ukrainian sources, that by the end of 2025 the total number of desertion-AWOL incidents was 480,000.

Overall, this gives us a combined figure of 311,327 for AWOL and desertion proceedings. It is worth keeping in mind that some soldiers may be represented more than once in this data and that sizeable numbers of others are not represented at all.

On the other side of this, in the war itself and on the frontlines, Ukrainian soldiers have repeatedly complained of inadequate rotation, manpower shortages, poor supplies, dwindling ammunition and poor equipment, and serving for prolonged periods under fire. This often leaves them ‘exhausted both morally and physically’.

This has become such an issue that the former Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Oleksandr Syrskyi, gave an order in April (2026) that no front-line soldier would serve for more than two months in forward positions.

Ukraine’s desertion crisis, the brutal realities of life on the frontlines and the slow but steady grind of Russian forces breaking through successive Ukrainian defence strongholds have created a vicious circle and a feedback loop that is producing the conditions that keep it spinning round.


Busifications

These are not widely known outside of Ukraine and Russia. The Western mainstream media touches on them almost not at all, for reasons of ignorance and something far more insidious.

Busifications are forced conscriptions where members of one of Ukraine’s military administrative bodies attack civilian men on the street and attempt to kidnap them with the goal of forcing them into the army to fight on the frontlines. The body most associated with these impressments is the Territorial Centre of Recruitment and Social Support (TCR), and they often roll up in minibuses or small vans, hence the reason for their name.

It is hard to pin down the exact number of these attacks as the Ukrainian Government releases no official figures on them. This site catalogues 7,491 busification incidents, with 3,741 coming in the last year alone. The site lists 62 fatalities in total since the war began. Basic logic dictates that many of these press-gang mobilisations will not be filmed, and many that are will not end up on this site. The real number is likely to a number of times greater than this.

Complaints against the TCR have also skyrocketed – from just 18 in 2022 to 514 in 2023, 3,312 in 2024 and 6,127 in 2025, an increase of more than 333-fold in just three years. These are not all for busifications, but basic logic dictates, once again, that these men are rarely able to complain for themselves if the attack is successful and must rely on their friends and family to bring their cases to the authorities.

Ukrainian attitudes towards the bodies carrying out these attacks have deteriorated dramatically: 77% now disapprove of their local TCR, compared with 52% in early 2024. The busification phenomenon has come to occupy a central place in Ukrainian society. It was the word of the year for 2024.

The fear and anger are very real too. There are the conditions and hardships described above. There are the brutal realities of the war with Russia themselves. Zelenskiy says 50,000 AFU troops have been killed and 400,000 injured with a large number also missing; Russia says 1.5 million have been killed and injured. The truth is likely to be somewhere in between.

The horror of life inside the Ukrainian Army after mobilisation is also something these men, who are mostly working class, have to contend with. Skelya is the AFU’s largest assault formation, and it is synonymous with torture, suicide, death and extreme brutality; 26 men died in its training centres over a six-month period.

This is sparking violent pushback against the TCR and busifications in general. The July riots in Lvov where recruiters were attacked and their vehicle smashed and overturned is the most notable expression of this thus far, but the fury and opposition is only likely to grow.

All of this knits together to add another twist to the vicious circle: the savagery of the war and life in the Ukrainian Military coupled with the severe paucity of resources has produced a desertion and evasion crisis, with this in turn leading to ever more extreme mobilisation methods, and both are making more men evade and desert and making Ukrainian society turn overwhelmingly against Ukraine’s military recruitment bodies. Ukrainians continue to admire the men fighting the war while increasingly despising the machinery compelling more people to join them.


Trust in the President and Other Institutions

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s approval rating has fluctuated significantly over the past five years. It went from 37% before the invasion to 90% during the early stages of the war, then dropped off to 77% by the end of 2023, dropping off further still to 52% by the end of 2024, before rebounding to 74% by the middle of 2025.

At present, he is trusted by 56% of the populace and distrusted by 38%. This further breaks down to 28% fully trusting him and 28% rather trusting him, and 14% rather distrusting and 24% fully distrusting.

There is no good evidence that polls are being falsified or manipulated. However, there is a lot of evidence that the wording of the polls, wartime conditions and the fear of being perceived as unpatriotic all impact the results significantly.

Respondents are more likely to answer negatively when asked about their friends’ perceptions rather than their own and explicitly referring to Zelenskiy as ‘president’ elicits a higher approval rating. There is also marked divergence between the results of separate polls even when they are conducted simultaneously.

The larger part of Ukrainian society trusts Zelenskiy to remain leader for the time being, but, interestingly, most also want someone else to lead the country whenever the war ends and favour sweeping political reforms.

Overall, when compared to other world leaders, Zelenskiy continues to be perceived positively. As adduced, there are also large caveats to this. The Armed Forces (92%), National Guard (72%) and military intelligence (71%) all enjoy consistently high levels of trust and approval.

This in stark contrast to political, state and civilian institutions.
Verkhovna Rada: 76% distrust. State officials/bureaucracy: 75%.
Government: 73%. Political parties: 71.5%. Courts: 66%. Prosecutor’s Office: 60%. Ukrainian authorities generally: 57%.

We even see that Ukraine’s anti-corruption bodies are more distrusted than trusted.NACP: 50% distrust / 32% trust. SAPO: 47% / 37%. NABU: 45% / 41%.

Gallup found that 85% of Ukrainians believe government corruption is widespread, and the country frequently ranked in the world top ten for perceived corruption from 2014 to 2025. This perception of corruption being endemic has also increased since the war began.

Taken all together, we see that Zelenskiy enjoys a fairly robust approval rating but strictly as a wartime leader and there are some large caveats. This is accompanied by deep disillusionment with Ukraine’s civilian political apparatus without an analogous distrust of the country’s military institutions.


Zelenskiy’s Ever-Revolving Door

The last year has seen considerable turbulence and even chaos inside President Zelenskiy’s Cabinet and at the top of the Ukrainian State. He has lost or replaced; Andriy Yermak, his domineering presidential chief of staff; Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko; Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov; Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi; Justice and former Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko; and Energy Minister Svitlana Grynchuk.

Most recently, deputy presidential chief of staff Irina Mudra, alongside numerous other senior military and political officials, was dismissed by Zelenskiy as the ‘Forrest Gump’ investigation by Ukraine’s anti-corruption bodies became public.

The extraordinary pace that Zelenskiy is going through ministers and high officials at is indicative of a precarious and highly unstable political environment where the president is forever trying to triangulate and outmanoeuvre to ensure he remains in the strongest possible position at the top of the Ukrainian State.


Swamped on All Sides – Land, Sea and Air

The Greater Odessa port hub – comprised of the Ports of Odessa, Pivdennyi and Chornomorsk – are of vital importance to Ukraine. Roughly two thirds of Ukraine’s seaborne trade is handled by the Odessa port cluster, and it is responsible for 90% of the country’s agricultural exports. In 2025, it accounted for 89% of all cargo passing through Ukraine’s operating seaports.

Russia began heavily besieging the Greater Odessa system of ports as well as land infrastructure essential for trade around the beginning of July with a mix of drone and cruise and ballistic missile attacks, before dramatically escalating this on the 22nd of July.

From the 1st of July to the 11th, there were 88 attacks on port infrastructure, 48 attacks on ships while in port and 39 attacks on ships while travelling through the maritime corridor. 26 port workers and sailors were killed during the month of July. Subsequent to the bombing campaign, 15 vessels were entering the ports a day, then it was 1 or 2, and finally traffic ground to a halt altogether in August. This may cost the Ukrainian economy up to 1.5% of its GDP.

The twin goals of this are to strangle maritime trade through the ports coupled with destroying Ukraine’s ability to circumvent it. Putin was criticised by Russian hardliners for not heavily targeting Odessa earlier, but he demurred for reasons of trade and to maintain good relations with the Global South.

There are a number of reasons why this changed, but the two most important for our analysis are Zelenskiy’s ‘pressure operation’ to disrupt the Russian economy and terrorise the civilian population in an ongoing drone warfare campaign (I have written about this a number of times before), and the fact that Ukraine is largely a sitting duck lacking the defensive capabilities to shoot down Russian missiles.

This was always the danger inherent in President Zelenskiy’s plan to make Russia agree to an end to war on terms more amenable to the Ukrainian Government: that it would work well enough that the only choice for the Russian Government would be to hit back hard and retaliate with another level of power.

This brings us to how much Ukraine’s ability to defend itself from air attacks has deteriorated. Patriot systems remain its only reliable defence against ballistic missiles, yet Zelenskiy says deliveries of air-defence missiles have fallen to just a third of last year’s level. On the 6th of July, Ukraine intercepted none of 29 incoming ballistic missiles, while between July 28th and August 4th it reportedly shot down no more than two of at least 50 ballistic and hypersonic missiles. Since the 11th of August, Ukrainian authorities have stopped publishing figures for missiles launched and intercepted altogether.

Then there are the fronts – the eastern front of Donetsk and Lugansk and the southern front of Zaporozhzhia and Kherson. These are the real theatres of war where most questions are being decided.

Russia presently occupies 99.8% of Lugansk, 79.9% of Donetsk, 74.9% of Zaporozhzhia and 65.5% of Kherson. Ukraine has managed to push back and stave off Russia in some cases, admirably it must be said. But this has only been possible with the backing of the Collective West and at the cost of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian lives.

Progress is extremely slow for the Russian Armed Forces, but it is steady and mostly only moves ever in one direction. Ukraine is now being swamped on all sides.


Conclusions

No one can say for sure if Ukraine is reaching breaking point or when a rupture of real significance will occur. But we can say that all the signs are there and this is far truer now than it was a year or two ago.

We see disillusionment with the political establishment and deep distrust of Ukraine’s political institutions. We see an increasingly desperate president. We see real fury and animosity taking hold across society. We see violent outbursts coming to the fore. And we see the country being swamped on all sides.

No one should be surprised to see something snap in Ukrainian society over the coming months. A real reckoning may be on the cards.