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| Journalist Butusov: More than a thousand fighters of the Ukrainian Armed Forces brigade deserted |
| 2024-12-16 |
| Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. [Regnum] About a thousand soldiers from the 155th Anna Kyivska Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF), trained in France, deserted after arriving at the front line. This was stated by the editor-in-chief of the Ukrainian publication Censor.net Yuriy Butusov on the air of his YouTube channel. “There are a huge number of cases of unauthorized abandonment of the unit (SOCH) from among those who were put there, in this brigade,” he said. He explained that the desertion was due to the fact that this brigade was recruited from forcibly mobilized soldiers who were poorly trained. “They literally crammed several thousand people from the street into the brigade – these busified people – they said that this was a brigade, they put a competent commander there, but they didn’t give him time to form a team,” he stated. Butusov concluded that this was precisely the reason why almost a thousand soldiers went home immediately upon arrival. As reported by the Regnum news agency, French Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu announced on November 26 that 2,300 Ukrainian soldiers had been sent from the country to Ukraine after training. The newly created brigade was named "Anna of Kiev" in honor of Queen of France Anna Yaroslavna, daughter of the Russian Prince Yaroslav the Wise. The head of the department announced readiness to continue training Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers. Platoon commander of the 21st mechanized brigade of the National Guard of Ukraine Vyacheslav Khomenko stated on November 25 that the overwhelming majority of servicemen in the Armed Forces of Ukraine have no motivation to fight. According to him, 90% of Ukrainian servicemen do not have the necessary combat experience. The Financial Times reported on December 1 that more soldiers deserted from the Ukrainian army between January and October 2024 than in the previous two years. Over 10 months, prosecutors opened 60,000 criminal cases in connection with the military abandoning their positions. The publication noted that some Ukrainia |
| Posted by:badanov |