Desertion during training Soldiers run away from new Ukrainian unit
Ukraine needs new combat-ready troops in the war against Russia. But things are going wrong with their formation. There are many cases of desertion.
02.01.2025, 23:30
03.01.2025, 06:45
dpa
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- Military experts accuse Ukraine's political and military leadership of making mistakes in the formation of new troops.
- Thousands of Ukrainian soldiers are deserting due to poor equipment and lack of organization.
- The military has not commented on the accusations.
In Ukraine, independent military experts are accusing the political and military leadership of mistakes in the formation of new units. The journalist Yuri Butusov described the case of the new 155th mechanized brigade, a prestige project of cooperation with France, on the portal "Zensor.net". Even before the brigade arrived at the front, 1,700 of its soldiers had deserted - including 50 allegedly during training in France.
In the deployment phase since March 2024, 2,500 soldiers were also initially assigned to the brigade, but were then reassigned to other units. The brigade leadership had hardly been able to practise with their soldiers in France. When the unit was then deployed with a nominal 5,800 men in eastern Ukraine near the city of Pokrovsk, it lacked drones and drone defense. The result was high casualties, Butussow wrote. He accused President Volodymyr Zelenskyi, Defence Minister Rustem Umyerov and Commander-in-Chief Olexander Syrskyi of poor organization.
Volunteers provide the missing drones
The military did not comment on the accusations. Other activists, such as Serhiy Sternenko, who organizes drones for the army, took up the issue with the 155th Brigade. "We recently started helping them because the brigade has not received any electronic warfare equipment or drones from the state," he wrote on the X social network.
He also criticized the indecision between replenishing existing troops and creating new units: "Why was a new brigade created when there was a critical shortage of existing brigades, only to split them up and send people to the old brigades?"
How useful are the new units?
Bohdan Krotevych, Chief of Staff of the Azov Brigade of the National Guard, asked why 1,700 men deserted from a new unit equipped with Western weapons. He said it made no sense to create new brigades as long as others were incomplete.
For the high command in Kiev, new troops with Western weapons and partly trained in the West are central to strengthening the depleted army after almost three years of the Russian war of aggression. However, officials have also complained in recent months that Western countries have often been slow to deliver the promised equipment.
Ukrainian experts attribute the steady advance of the Russian army in the Donbass in 2024 not only to its superiority. They also see leadership failures, tactical mistakes and a lack of coordination in the Ukrainian army. Journalists and bloggers close to the military in Ukraine often paint a picture that contradicts the military's official situation reports - the situation is similar on the Russian side.
