In Ukraine, an investigation opened after the chaotic entry into war of the “Anne de Kyiv” brigade formed by France – Libération

Lack of equipment, poorly trained soldiers, very high losses… The 155th mechanized brigade has had a complicated start, opening a debate on the opportunity to form entirely new teams or to reinforce the most experienced ones.

The Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, until 2015, was called Krasnoarmeysk, from its imposed Soviet name, meaning “Red Army”. It was renamed in the wake of the Maidan revolution. In January 2025, the Russian army, which still calls it by its old name, besieged the “Red Army”. A compact industrial, mining town of more than 60,000 inhabitants, the surroundings of which become the deathbed of several hundred Ukrainian soldiers of the 155th mechanized brigade “Anne de Kyiv”: a new entity of the Ukrainian army, trained in France, which bears the name of a princess of the Rus' of Kyiv (East Slavic principality from the 9th to the 13th century), who became queen of France in the year 1051, and rests in Senlis (Oise), far from his native lands.

At the end of December 2024, two and a half months after President Emmanuel Macron's visit to these soldiers training in the great east of France, the Ukrainian State Bureau of Investigation opened a criminal investigation into the circumstances surrounding the end of training and putting into combat this famous brigade on the central axis