Ukraine’s Security Service accuses more than a thousand of its officers of desertion

Kiev garrison’s military prosecutors are holding a prejudicial inquiry into the case of desertion of 1,372 Ukrainian Security Service’s (SBU) officers to Crimea and Donbass, according to Ukraine’s Unified register of court decisions.

In particular, courts already reviewed petitions filed by military prosecutors in July-August this year on detaining several dozens of SBU officers. Investigation was launched in April 2014 when many SBU officers did not go to Kiev on order of the SBU central command. Among those accused of desertion are many officers of SBU’s Center of special operations on fighting terrorism in Sevastopol and Simferopol.
The location of suspects has not been established yet. They face from 2 to years in prison for desertion.

reported earlier that since Kiev launched a military operation in the country’s east, more than 10,000 cases of desertion from Ukrainian Armed Forces have been registered.