Russians missing in the war in Ukraine are massively accused of "AWOL" – investigation

Russian soldiers who disappeared at the front in Ukraine are widely recognized as having gone AWOL. The Latvian investigative media outlet "Important Stories" has more than 50 complaints from relatives of these soldiers.

Relatives of the occupiers have been sending complaints that the status of "unauthorizedly left the unit" was unreasonably assigned to the administration of the dictator Vladimir Putin since the beginning of the full-scale war.

The complaints concern those who signed the contract at large or in a colony, those who were mobilized, and even those who, according to relatives, may have been captured. Often, little time passes between the signing of a contract, the disappearance of a person and his or her reporting to the SLC. Out of 20 people with known contract signing dates, 18 stopped contacting us in the first six months of service, most of them even in the first two months.

The shortest time between signing a contract and the last conversation is eight days.

Before a Russian is declared in the MOP, he or she is listed as either missing or wounded. It is noted that answers about one person often diverge from different commanders.

According to journalists, in every fifth complaint studied, relatives report that they learned the details of the death from fellow soldiers. At the same time, the soldier is officially in the status of an SPC.

Since February 2022, Russians have sent more than 40,500 complaints to the Kremlin about the search for missing soldiers. And since July 2024, this topic has been among the three most frequently asked questions that Russians address to Putin. The peak of these appeals was in late 2024 and early 2025 – 80 letters per day.

It is noted that it is not difficult to falsify the status of an SPC. According to a 2021 study from the journal "Law in the Armed Forces – Military Law Review", only the period of absence from service is enough. The circumstances are secondary. The study was based on an analysis of orders from various military and law enforcement agencies of the Russian Federation.

At the same time, according to relatives, fellow soldiers who know the details of the soldier's death are afraid to tell the truth. And the director of the human rights group "Citizen. Army. Right" human rights group, Serhiy Kryvenko, said that the Russian army is "highly bureaucratized": it is impossible to immediately recognize a soldier as dead and to pay the family, even if there are witnesses to his death. It is necessary to identify the body and conduct DNA analysis.

• on December 30, 2024, it was reported that most of the deserters and AWOLs in the Russian army were mobilized in Donbas. They are also the ones who are most often "zeroed in" and sent to assault.
• On July 24, 2025, The Times reported that Russia is sending children abducted from Ukraine to fight at the front. It could be thousands of people.