‘I just don’t want to kill or die’: Die Zeit reports that dozens of Ukrainian soldiers deserted during training in Germany

Dozens of Ukrainian soldiers have deserted during training exercises in Germany, the German newspaper Die Zeit reports, including about 80 cases in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt alone.

Volodymyr Shulgin, 39, from Dnipro, was a pianist before the war who wrote poetry and organized meetings of a Bible study group, Die Zeit reported. When Ukraine launched forced mobilization, he did everything he could to avoid being drafted: he gave up his job as a piano teacher because visiting his students had grown too dangerous with Territorial Recruitment Center (TRC) patrols on the streets.

Shulgin rarely left home, working with children there while his wife, Anna, earned money as a cleaner or courier. In late January 2026, a TRC patrol stopped the couple on the street, forced Shulgin into a car, and sent him to the army.

About 10 days later, Shulgin was sent for training to the Altengrabow military training ground, on the border between Saxony-Anhalt and Brandenburg. He wasn’t thinking about desertion at first. “The German soldiers welcomed us very warmly. The barracks were clean, the food was good, so I wanted to learn,” he said.

A few days later, Shulgin developed a fever and felt sick during morning roll call. When he asked to skip breakfast, a sergeant hit him in the chest in front of the other soldiers, and after Shulgin fell, ordered him to do 50 squats as punishment. Shulgin later asked a German doctor at the base for a fever reducer and mentioned the incident, when Ukrainian officers found out, one threatened to “bury him in a hole and report him as missing.”

That’s when Shulgin decided to desert. The German doctor referred him to the Charité clinic for treatment, and two weeks later, he walked away and never returned to base.

Die Zeit journalists spoke with about a dozen Ukrainian deserters in all. One fled abusive treatment by his commanders. Two others wanted to reunite with loved ones in the EU whom they hadn’t seen in years. Another had previously served a 15-year sentence for murder and saw the escape as a chance to start over. Yet another explained his decision this way: “I just don’t want to die, and I don’t want to kill. Not at the front, not anywhere else. Isn’t that enough?”

Most of the deserters, according to Die Zeit, are people like Shulgin: they lack the well-paying jobs that would let them hire a lawyer to fight mobilization, and they don’t qualify for the draft exemptions granted to the 1.3 million people working in fields the state considers critical. The deserters see this approach to mobilization as unfair.

Whether Shulgin and other deserters will be allowed to stay in Germany remains unclear, Die Zeit notes. The general rules granting residency to Ukrainian citizens who fled the Russian invasion don’t apply to Ukrainian recruits who deserted on military territory.

The only legal path to staying is to apply for asylum and prove that returning to Ukraine would endanger their lives or expose them to political persecution. The chances of success, Die Zeit notes, are slim. Deserters, meanwhile, face criminal liability in Ukraine, including up to 12 years in prison.

Ukrainian soldiers have deserted during training in other countries as well. In January, the French news agency Agence France-Presse reported that “several dozen” of the 2,200 service members of the 155th Anne of Kyiv Mechanized Brigade deserted during training in France.

Die Zeit cites statistics showing that at least 60,000 service members have deserted from the Ukrainian army since February 2022, while Ukraine’s Defense Ministry says more than 2 million men inside the country are currently evading conscription.