Ukrainian officers defect from the army

Officers of the Ukrainian Armed Forces are defecting the army in the anti-terror operation (ATO) area in protest, Deputy Commander of the DPR Eduard Basurin has announced at a briefing today, EADaily’s correspondent reports.

“According to the information we have, 18 people have deserted from the 28^th Separate Mechanized Brigade that is located at the Mariupol direction. We do not rule out that the fatal step was taken by them in order to draw public attention to the real situation in the ATO area and the army in general and to support protest actions against the current government, to call for reforms,” Basurin said.

He also noted that the Ukrainian Armed Forces officers who do not want to accept the situation in the army, are more and more often being oppressed by the command and accused of all manners of offenses: deaths of troops, malfunction of weaponry, that makes them leave their military units in order to avoid responsibility for concocted charges.