Russian soldiers from the 247th Air Assault Regiment in the temporarily occupied part of Zaporizhzhia Oblast are deserting en masse, according to Atesh, the Crimean-Ukrainian partisan movement.

According to its reports, the highest number of desertions is occurring in one particular battalion of the regiment. The main reason is the forced conscription of residents from occupied territories, particularly Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, and Crimea.

“Lawlessness, incompetent command, refusal to register reports, intimidation, and constant front-line losses only fuel the desire to flee,“ notes Atesh.

The Russian army is collapsing from within

This is not an isolated incident. Earlier, Russia’s Defense Ministry sent a commission to the 1196th Motorized Rifle Regiment stationed in occupied Kherson Oblast. The reason? Soldier suicides and sabotage of watercraft. All of this signals demoralization and disintegration within the occupying forces.

Russia cynically exploits the occupied territories

The desertion of those forcibly mobilized from occupied areas once again proves: Russia doesn’t view residents of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, or Crimea as its citizens, but as cannon fodder.

Locals are conscripted by force, without basic rights — no contracts, no legal status, no rotations.
Wounds aren’t documented, discharges are ignored, and complaints lead to persecution. At the same time, occupied territories are being turned into military bases for further aggression against Ukraine. 

How much of Zaporizhzhia Oblast does Russia control?

As of August 2025, Russia controls about 60% of Zaporizhzhia Oblast. Major occupied towns include Melitopol, Berdiansk, Tokmak, and Enerhodar.

The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in Enerhodar poses the largest nuclear threat in Europe. Russia has mined the facility, uses it as cover for shelling, and deploys troops there. 

The lower house of the Dutch parliament on June 19 officially recognized the 1944 mass deportation of Crimean Tatars by the Soviet Union as genocide, according to a statement from the parliamentary press service.

The motion cited precedent from other countries that have recognized the forced deportations as genocide, including Poland, the Czech Republic, Canada, Latvia, Lithuania, and Ukraine.

In the adopted text, Dutch lawmakers declared that the Soviet-led deportation of Crimean Tatars, which took place between May 18 and 21, 1944, constitutes genocide by contemporary legal and historical definitions.

The 1944 deportation was carried out under direct orders from Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, who labeled the entire Crimean Tatar population as traitors following the peninsula's liberation from Nazi occupation.

Over 190,000 Tatars were forcibly removed from Crimea in a matter of days, though some estimates place the number closer to 430,000, and sent to remote areas in Central Asia, mainly Uzbekistan, in brutal conditions that led to mass deaths.

The document pointed to the ongoing repression of Crimean Tatars under Russian occupation since 2014. It said that "many Crimean Tatars have been unjustly imprisoned, subjected to torture by the Russian Federation, or forcibly disappeared," and added that "Russia has likely continued a policy of genocide against Crimean Tatars."

Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha welcomed the decision, calling it "a powerful gesture of solidarity with the Crimean Tatar people, who are still facing persecution under Russia’s temporary occupation of the Ukrainian Crimea peninsula."

Sybiha noted that the Netherlands is now the seventh country to formally recognize the deportation as genocide and urged other nations to follow suit.

"Recognizing this historical injustice is critical not only for establishing truth and justice, but also for preventing future atrocities," the minister wrote.

Ukraine's parliament recognized the deportation as genocide in 2015 and established May 18 as the official Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the Genocide of the Crimean Tatar People.

Who are the Crimean Tatars?

Crimean Tatars are one of Ukraine’s indigenous peoples who have been central to Crimea’s history for many centuries.

The Kyiv IndependentAnastasiia Lapatina