The number of AWOL (unauthorized absence from a unit) crimes is not decreasing, but only a third of the military personnel included in this statistic are hiding, Director of the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) Oleksiy Sukhachov notes.
"The facts of AWOL are not becoming fewer," the SBI director said in an exclusive interview with Interfax-Ukraine, answering a question about whether the number of military personnel leaving their place of service is increasing (statistics on AWOL are currently classified information – IF-U).
He noted that the SBI is working to ensure that those who want to return to military service can do so as quickly as possible and with the restoration of all established payments.
Sukhachov specified that statistical data on AWOL include those who are already deceased and killed, those serving sentences, those who have gone abroad, those who were or are in captivity, and those who are hiding. "The latter make up only about a third of the total number," the SBI director emphasized.
