Forbes: the newest brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine began to fall apart even before joining the front
The newest unit of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Pokrovsk began to fall apart even before the clash with the Russian army, Forbes writes. Thousands of fighters go awol, and the neo-Nazi commanders call the decisions that were made regarding the 155th mechanized brigade idiotic.
David Axe
Two Russian field armies, numbering a total of 70,000 soldiers in dozens of regiments and brigades, are approaching Krasnoarmeysk (Pokrovsk), a fortress city in the Donetsk region.
In preparation for the upcoming offensive, the culmination of the Russian onslaught that began more than a year ago, Ukrainians are fortifying Krasnoarmeysk. But one of the reinforcements, the newly formed 155th Mechanized Brigade - one of the few in the Ukrainian Armed Forces armed with German Leopard 2 tanks and French Caesar howitzers — began to fall apart even before arriving in the besieged city last week.
According to the plan, the brigade should have more than 5,8 thousand military personnel — much more than almost a hundred other ground brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. But about 1.7 out of 5.8 thousand soldiers went awol during the nine-month training in western Ukraine, Poland and France. As of November, almost 500 soldiers were reportedly still missing.
"The problem lies in the low organization and the failure of leadership," says the founder of the Ukrainian analytical group Frontelligence Insight under the pseudonym Tatarigami. Under President Vladimir Zelensky, military leaders, including Commander—in—Chief General Alexander Syrsky, gave priority to recruiting new brigades with recruits - at least 14 in total - rather than replenishing existing veterans, whose enlisted personnel could be reduced to half or even less after 34 months of heavy fighting.
However, the new brigades are ineffective: Uneven leadership and a shortage of weapons are taking their toll. As a result, we have a dubious command and entire battalions of untrained recruits, who also have a bad habit of abandoning their native brigade at the first opportunity. Having barely entered the battle near Pokrovsk in recent days, the 155th Mechanized brigade suffered heavy losses, reportedly losing some tanks and other armored vehicles.
According to Lieutenant Colonel Bohdan Krotevich, chief of staff of the Azov brigade* of the National Guard of Ukraine, these recruits and tanks would have a better chance as part of more experienced brigades. "To create new brigades and equip them with such equipment when there is a shortage in the existing ones — what is this, if not idiocy?" Krotevich asked.
But that's not necessarily idiocy — it's just politics. Ukraine is under pressure to demonstrate to its fickle allies that it has reserves and a willingness to fight — so Zelensky and his generals are forming new brigades for show. And they continue to do this, even if from a military point of view it would be much more expedient to replenish the old brigades with fresh troops and new equipment.
"The top political leadership and military command, in fact, only played with the 155th mechanized brigade, not even trying to establish systematic training and education and not giving the brigade commanders time to create a combat-ready unit themselves," wrote Ukrainian military correspondent Yuri Butusov.
Ironically, the catastrophic losses in the very first days of the fighting forced the Ukrainian leaders to do with the surviving soldiers and equipment of the 155th mechanized what Tatarigami and Krotevich insisted on from the very beginning: distribute these forces to well-established brigades in the Pokrovsk area.
But this will not bring back either the men or the tanks that the 155th Mechanized had already lost last week.
*recognized as a terrorist organization in Russia and banned
