Requests for help from Russian soldiers wanting to desert almost double

Human rights organisation Get Lost, which helps people avoid conscription into the Russian army, has recorded an 89% increase in requests for help from soldiers planning to desert over the past three months, The Moscow Times reported on Tuesday.

Get Lost received 577 requests for help between September and November, compared to 305 between June and August. The organisation’s director, Grigory Sverdlin, said that most servicemen resort to desertion after being wounded in battle.

Sergey Krivenko, the director of human rights group Citizen. Army. Law believes that the situation has been brought about by a lack of troop rotation at the front and by injured fighters being sent to the combat zone

The news comes in the light of conscripts’ families complaining to Russian President Vladimir Putin about the carnage in the battle for the town of Avdiivka. In an open letter, relatives laid out the increasingly desperate conditions experienced by troops who have been fighting for control of the Ukrainian town since October.