The Ukies WERE THE FUCKING USSR, nearly all the chief of staff of the read army, half of the soviet supreme, etc… were Ukrainian (or worse Jewish Ukrainian, daily reminders that Ashkenazi Jews, AKA the problematic ones, are all Ukrainians of origin). Hence why Ukraine is the only part that continuously grown during the USSR. The Ukrainian communist party was basically the equivalent of the chicago/detroit networks to the democratic party, they were the ones calling all the shots politically.
You can listen to the drivel of a handful of SS LARPers from Lvov it doesn't change the fact that Ukraine is a communist frankenstate. Mostly meant to create exactly this: dissent between the Russian peoples (which Ukrainians, even western Ukrainian, are).
Of draft dodgers + soldiers yes. Hell plus refugees it's probably counted in million by now… in 2015 there was 600k+ Ukrainian refugees in Russia and roughly 100k in Belarus (Ukrainian democracy is so great people literally fled to the last communist dictatorship in Europe) dixit the UN reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/OCHA Ukraine Situation Report number 34_0.pdf
For starters in Crimea most of the army defected, approx something between 2000 and 6500 at most went back. They were 20k+ VS maybe 10k Russians (most of it just being the garrison already there) … yup not one shot was fired, but the Ukrainian army is totally loyal guys, it's all Moscow propaganda.
It got comical when Kiev fired the chief of the Navy (Crimea military region is always headed by a Navy guy) that defected, replaced him by another admiral who also defected the next day. bbc.com/news/world-europe-26410431
By the own admittance of the Ukrainian staff 50% of their soldiers stayed there (web.archive.org/web/20140326090516/http://un.ua/eng/article/500186.html ) but it would have still meant massive convoys nobody saw (and not buses by the handful).
Hell early in the rebellion some of them even joined the rebels (as in battalion strength formation switching sides)…
The Ukrainian army is supposedly somewhere between 230k and 280k, which was only attained through multiple waves of conscription most of which can't managed to reach their objectives (with often less than half the conscripts they should get) leading to conscripts never being release to fill in the ranks (so you have people conscripted for a year that are in their 3rd year of mobilization… then you complain about desertions…)
usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/05/02/ukraine-draft-dodgers-in-fight-against-separatists/26462801/
(It's old it's only gotten worse).
That's the beauty of it if you're born in the Ex-USSR… you can get a Russian passport, and Russia has a low unemployment, so you get a job, papers, people that speak the same language that you, that recognize any diploma/formation you may have… Of course they're all in Russia. Where else?
So by 2015 UKRAINIANS official numbers 39k + 12k that's already 51k defections.
The current numbers are obviously higher and the REAL ones. Ukrainians are lying on basically all their numbers (Russians may be lying too but that doesn't make the Ukrainian believable), be it economy, demographic and especially military.
Like when they lose, with photo and video proof, 10 vehicles they don't lose 10 soldiers. IF you believe them 1960's soviet junkyard vehicles are the most survivable piece of kit EVER, they've got 869 documented K-kill (catastrophic hull losses) and 401 M-kill (mobility losses) and only 2 000ish soldiers dead. Just the tanks losses (with the soviet syndrome of the turret blown sky high), are over 150. No problem the crews just walked it off. BMP so overcooked you can't even tell the type? Nah it's a wreck from WWII. Entire convoys pummeled by artillery. We did lost one driver and one soldier sprained it's leg.