- Category
- Latest news
Russia Allegedly Labels Missing Soldiers as Deserters to Hide War Casualties
- Authors
![Photo of Roman Kohanets]( "Photo of Roman Kohanets")
-111f0e5095e02c02446ffed57bfb0ab1.jpeg "Photo of Roman Kohanets")
A joint investigation by The Kyiv Independent and Russian outlet iStories has revealed a systemic practice by the Russian military of reclassifying missing soldiers as deserters in order to conceal the actual number of war casualties. The investigation, published on July 28, details how this reclassification is being used to mask battlefield losses in the ongoing war against Ukraine.
Hundreds—and potentially thousands—of Russian troops who have gone missing in action are being officially listed as “deserters,” a designation that strips their families of the financial compensation ordinarily provided to those whose relatives are confirmed killed in combat.
One example cited is that of Dmitry Tsarev, a Russian conscript deployed to Ukraine in 2022, whose body was never recovered after his unit suffered heavy losses. His family was later informed he had “voluntarily left his unit,” with military authorities assigning him the status of deserter. “They told us Dmitry ran away. But that’s impossible—he was proud to serve,” Tsarev’s mother told iStories.
Officially, Russian law stipulates that if a soldier is listed as missing, families are entitled to compensation comparable to those killed in combat. However, the shift in status to “desertion” invalidates those entitlements, leaving families both without closure and without financial aid.
Human rights lawyer Pavel Chikov from Agora noted: “By classifying missing servicemen as deserters, the Ministry of Defense not only relieves itself of financial obligations, but also erases these deaths from the statistics.”
The investigation also cites an increasing number of cases where soldiers vanish after being deployed to high-risk zones such as Bakhmut or Avdiivka.
Instead of being declared missing or presumed dead, they are being expunged from official records or labeled as fugitives, which also hinders identification efforts by independent organizations.
The reclassification policy has also had legal consequences. In multiple cases, families challenging the “deserter” status in court were met with classified documentation, restricted access to military records, or outright refusal by local officials to assist.
As of July 2025, human rights monitors say no clear mechanism exists in Russia for families to independently verify a soldier’s fate if the Defense Ministry declares him a deserter. This legal void continues to deny thousands of relatives both truth and accountability.
Meanwhile, it was reported that Russia’s 41st Army is facing collapse, with leaked internal documents indicating extremely high figures of missing and deserter-designated servicemen—e.g. one brigade reported nearly equal numbers of personnel listed as killed, missing and deserting, illustrating the scale of reclassification used to mask casualties.
