Around 2 million Ukrainians are dodging military drafts, while another 200,000 are absent without official leave, or AWOL, Kyiv’s newly appointed defense minister said on Wednesday.
The tally revealed by Mykhailo Fedorov is a rare disclosure by the Ukrainian leadership about the troop shortages the country has grappled with throughout the war.
Fedorov, who was previously minister of digital transformation, was speaking in Ukraine’s parliament as representatives confirmed his new appointment in the defense role.
The defense minister said roughly 2 million Ukrainians are “wanted” for evading callups, with another 200,000 soldiers voluntarily leaving their posts without permission to do so.
Fedorov has pledged wide reform, saying he would audit Ukraine’s military and root out systemic issues “that have accumulated over the years” in training and command.
“We cannot fight with new technologies under an old organizational structure,” Fedorov said.
Under martial law in Ukraine, going AWOL is defined as being away without permission for more than three days, an act that can carry a prison sentence of between five to 10 years. Desertion is when a soldier is deemed to be intentionally avoiding service and carries a more severe sentence of up to 12 years in prison.
A soldier could go AWOL if they are given a break from the fighting or leave to return home, then fail to show up when ordered to do so. Sometimes, troops simply flee their positions.
The figures relayed by Fedorov may be affected by a notorious tactic among Ukrainian troops seeking to transfer to another unit, especially if they were previously denied. Some soldiers try to circumvent the official process by going AWOL and then reporting for duty again with a recommendation for their desired unit.
Ukraine’s prosecutor general’s office told local media outlet Ukrainska Pravda last year that, from the start of the war to September 2025, it had opened over 235,000 criminal cases for AWOL-related offenses, as well as over 53,000 for desertion.
As a loose comparison, some records say that a rough total of 150,000 American and British troops deserted or went AWOL during World War II across the entire European theater.
Ukraine’s fight to keep its troops
Another key concern implied in Fedorov’s speech is the sheer scale of missing recruits that Kyiv desperately needs.
The country is already straining against Russia’s much larger war economy and military industrial complex, and one of its most pressing needs is to replenish its fighters on the front lines.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that his country fields around 880,000 active-duty personnel, though other estimates vary.
The lack of reinforcements is crushing both for Ukrainian morale and operational success. Without reinforcements, some Ukrainian units have reported holding frontline positions for years with barely any rest or opportunity to rotate out to see their families.
In the city of Pokrovsk, for example, Zelenskyy said that Kyiv’s troops were outnumbered 1 to 8 in the fall, when Russia aggressively tried to take control of the devastated regional hub via repeated ground assaults.
Ukrainian men aged 25 to 60 are eligible to be called up for active duty, though those as young as 18 must register with the military. Thousands of Ukrainian men have fled overseas since the war started. Many have done so illegally; Ukraine doesn’t allow men aged 23 to 60 to leave its borders.
Fedorov said a key focus of his audit would be to assess what Ukraine can do more efficiently with the troops it has now. One of these reform goals is to ensure basic-level staffing in all of Ukraine’s drone brigades, which he said is now “definitely lacking.”
“Today, the top 50 out of 400 total units involved in drones provide 70% of enemy damage,” he said. “Imagine the potential of the defense forces if we help the remaining 350 grow.”
The defense minister, who is 35, also said the Ukrainian military is starting the year with considerably fewer resources. Its budget for 2026 is roughly 300 billion Ukrainian hryvnias, or $7 billion, lower than that for 2025, Fedorov said.
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