According to Opendatabot, in 2023, Ukrainians received 1,274 verdicts in court cases of military service evasion. The defendants received both suspended and actual prison sentences of up to 5 years.
A total of 3,746 verdicts of this kind have been passed since the beginning of the war in 2014. One third of them were passed in 2023.
The first peak of sentences occurred in 2015 with the beginning of Russian aggression in the Ukrainian Donbas: 1,596 sentences were passed. Then their number gradually decreased, reaching 8 completed cases in 2021. However, in the first year after the full-scale invasion, the number of such cases increased 25 times — to 220 verdicts.
The number of cases increased 5 times last year, to 1,274, compared to 2022. 60 criminal proceedings resulted in actual imprisonment.
An example is the situation in September, when a person liable for military service passed a medical examination, received a call, but did not come to the collection point. He received a 3-year prison sentence.