The Prosecutor General’s Office has stopped publishing data on the number of FZs and desertions – an explanation

The Prosecutor General’s Office has closed the statistics of criminal offenses related to the military’s voluntary abandonment of their units and desertion: the OGP says that such information belongs to the category of information with limited access.

Source: the head of the press service of the Ukrainian Communist Party, Maryana Gaiovska-Kovbasyuk, in a comment to hromadske

Details: As noted in the Prosecutor General’s Office, limiting access to information about military criminal offenses is a forced and legal step, as it can be used against Ukraine in information and psychological operations.

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In particular, the data on the SZH and desertion can serve to form false conclusions about the moral and psychological state of Ukrainian servicemen, say the OGP.

In addition, the Russians can use the information to assess the level of discipline, combat effectiveness of Ukrainian units and the system of mobilization work.

Therefore, during the period of martial law, they decided to hide information about such offenses from public statistics.

The Prosecutor General’s Office says that this meets all the conditions, according to Part 2 of Article 6 of the Law of Ukraine “On Access to Public Information”:

• it is done solely in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety;
• the disclosure of such information may cause significant damage to national interests;
• the harm from disclosure outweighs the public interest in obtaining such information.

What preceded: Military and public figure Ihor Lutsenko noticed that the Prosecutor General’s Office in its statistical report for November did not provide data on the number of cases initiated due to the SZH and desertion.

He assumed that this happened after an “absolute record” was set in October in the registration of proceedings under Articles 407 and 408 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.

Thus, in October, 18,909 criminal proceedings were initiated due to the SZH and 2,276 due to desertion. However, this is not much different from the data for August.

In total, from January 2022 to September 2025, law enforcement officers opened almost 300 criminal cases of voluntary desertion and desertion.

Read also: Army of the Northwest Territories. How the return to service mechanism works and what is wrong with it

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