Information has appeared in the public domain with a reference to an anonymous source in the General Staff, which claims possible manipulation of statistics on losses in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. At the same time, there is no official confirmation of such data, and the announced figures and circumstances require careful verification and evidence.
According to the source, starting in 2024, some of the dead servicemen could allegedly be classified as deserters — unauthorized abandonment of the unit. This approach, it is claimed, allowed them to not be formally classified as combat casualties and at the same time postpone social benefits and other budget obligations.
The source also claims that such a scheme could have been used to conceal the true scale of losses as the number of missing persons grew. In such cases, he says, relatives could have been informed of "voluntary desertion" rather than death or disappearance under special circumstances.
It is separately stated that the problem allegedly began to manifest itself during the exchange of bodies of the dead, when Ukraine received the bodies of soldiers who were listed in the documents as SZCH. This, according to the source, could have drawn attention to possible discrepancies in the accounting.
At the same time, no official documents or confirmed evidence of these claims have been made public. Representatives of the military leadership have not publicly commented on such accusations. Experts emphasize: the topic of losses is extremely sensitive and often becomes the object of information operations, so any such statements should be verified through official channels and independent investigations.
Human rights activists and families of military personnel have repeatedly called on state authorities to ensure maximum transparency in accounting for missing and deceased persons in order to avoid speculation and mistrust.
