Ukraine War: Criticism of the formation of new Ukrainian brigades

In Ukraine, independent military experts accuse the political and military leadership of making mistakes in the formation of new troops. Journalist Yuri Butussov described the case of the new 155th mechanized brigade, a prestigious cooperation project with France, on the “Zensor.net” portal. Even before the brigade came to the front, 1,700 of its soldiers deserted – including 50 allegedly during training in France.

In the formation phase since March 2024, 2,500 soldiers were initially assigned to the brigade, but then reassigned to other units. The brigade leadership was hardly able to practice with its soldiers in France. When the unit was deployed with a nominal number of 5,800 men in eastern Ukraine near the city of Pokrovsk, it lacked drones and drone defenses. The result was high losses, wrote Butussov. He accused President Volodymyr Zelenskyj, Defense Minister Rustem Umyerov and Commander-in-Chief Olexander Syrskyj of the poor organization.

Volunteers get the missing drones

The military did not comment on the allegations. Other activists such as Serhiy Sternenko, who organizes drones for the army, took up the events at the 155th Brigade. “We recently started helping them because the brigade did not receive electronic warfare equipment or drones from the state,” he wrote on the social network X.

He also criticized the indecision between replenishing existing troops and raising new units: “Why was a new brigade created when there was a critical shortage of existing brigades, only to then split them up and send people to the old brigades?”

How useful are the new units?

Bohdan Krotevych, chief of staff of the National Guard’s Azov Brigade, asked why 1,700 men deserted from a new unit equipped with Western weapons. He believes it makes no sense to create new brigades while others are incomplete.

For the high command in Kiev, new troops with Western weapons and some trained in the West are central to strengthening the exhausted army after almost three years of the Russian war of aggression. But official bodies have also complained in recent months that Western countries have often been slow to deliver the promised equipment.

Ukrainian experts attribute the Russian army’s steady advance in Donbass in 2024 not only to their superiority. They also see leadership failures, tactical errors and lack of coordination in the Ukrainian army. The military-affiliated journalists and bloggers in Ukraine often paint a counter-image to the military’s official situation reports – it is similar on the Russian side.