This was reported to Interfax-Ukraine by the director of the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI), Oleksiy Sukhachev."Thanks to the law and the developed mechanism, over 29,000 soldiers who left their units voluntarily returned to the army from November 29, 2024 to August 2025," he said.The SBI director recalled that this mechanism, developed in cooperation with the military law enforcement service, the police and the prosecutor's office, gives soldiers a chance to return to service, renew their support and, by court decision, avoid criminal liability."This mechanism provides a chance for those who committed desertion to return to the military unit and continue their service in a simplified manner with the restoration of monetary, food, material and other support," the agency quotes Sukhachev.From the beginning of 2022 to September 2024, the Prosecutor General's Office registered almost 60,000 criminal proceedings for the fact of unauthorized abandonment of the unit and about 30,000 for desertion.According to the State Bureau of Investigation, in the period from November 29, 2024 to March 1, 2025, more than 21,000 servicemen returned to service after desertion.