Ukraine's military says it's facing a growing problem of desertion.

Experts estimate approximately 150,000 service members may be missing from their units as the war grinds through its fifth year.

Soldiers cite extreme fatigue caused by long deployments without rotation, anger at orders seen as suicide missions, and forced mobilization.

Special correspondent Jack Hewson reports on one young soldier who says these pressures

pushed him beyond his breaking point.

We've changed the names and voices of some of the subjects in this report to protect their identities.

Across Ukraine's towns and villages,

tens of thousands of former soldiers hide from a duty they can no longer face.

For many, like Andri, it wasn't always this way.

He signed up to fight willingly in 2023.

I couldn't just sit there, healthy and young, and not go defend my country.

I thought there was something to fight for.

When Andrew arrived at the front in Bachmuth in eastern Ukraine, he was just 18 years old,

but his youthful enthusiasm to defend his country quickly turned.

At first he was sheltered from frontline missions, according to his comrade Sasha.

He was the youngest among us. To be honest, he was like a child. He didn't understand where he had come from. He was a little confused.

As he became an accomplished fighter, Andri's youthful enthusiasm and patriotic zeal would be tainted by his perception of the battalion's leadership.

I thought people would be valued. I thought there would be some kind of support there.

Well, I got there and I realized that the commanders were sending people to their deaths.

It was crazy.

It was this allegedly flippant attitude towards life and the pressures

of the command that he believed led to the suicide of a friend, Dennis Boyko, a frontline position

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