“Thank you France,” declared the Ukrainian president after his meeting Wednesday evening with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron.
At the end of his meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron on the evening of Wednesday December 18, his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky announced an agreement to form a second brigade of the Ukrainian army in France. “I expressed my gratitude to France for preparing a brigade for our army and we agreed to continue this cooperation and prepare an additional brigade”he wrote, specifying that “the focus remains clearly on strengthening air defense capabilities” and greeting a “in-depth one-on-one discussion”.
On June 6, 2024, during the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the Normandy landings, the French head of state announced the formation of a Ukrainian brigade in France, formalized on June 28. The 155th mechanized brigade, also called Anne de kyiv, is notably equipped with 18 French Caesar cannons, 128 French armored front vehicles (VAB), 18 French AMX-10RC fire reconnaissance armored vehicles, and 10 Renault TRM trucks. and 20 Milan anti-tank missile posts, but also around thirty German Leopard 2A4 heavy tanks supplied by Poland. 2,300 Ukrainian soldiers (among the 4,500 in the unit) were trained in the Mourmelon camp in eastern France by 1,500 French soldiers. “A unique model of support for Ukraine that only France is implementing”greets the Ministry of the Armed Forces, which recalls that beyond the Anne of kyiv brigade, France has trained 15,000 Ukrainian soldiers since the start of the war.
“Entering the combat zone”
In mid-November, the 155th mechanized brigade finished its training, Ukrainian Defense Minister Roustem Umerov announced, while “VAB” was observed on trains by Agence France Presse leaving for Ukraine. And, on December 11, Colonel Dmitry Ryumshin, announcing that he was leaving command of the brigade in a message on social networks, added that the unit was doing its “entry into the combat zone”. Elements of the brigade have since been observed in the Pokrovsk region, where the Russians have been advancing in recent weeks, village after village. Again on December 19, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced the capture of two additional localities, even though Russian forces are only three kilometers from the city, a key logistics center in Donbass.
In Ukraine, criticism has nevertheless emerged in recent weeks about the Anne brigade in kyiv. The harsh indictment of a deputy, Maryana Bezugla, who recently declared in the Ukrainian press that she was “civilian democratic control necessary in times of war”caused a lot of noise. “The fate of the 155th Mechanized Brigade remains the same as that of all other ‘zombie brigades’ or ‘paper brigades’, as they are also called. People are forcibly integrated into it, but no coordination of command structures is ensured. Later, the unit is simply disbanded and attached to others, with most being sent to assault units, except for those ‘placed’ in staff positions through dubious ploys.the parliamentarian from the party had written about “Servant of the people”that of Volodymyr Zelensky. And to ask yourself: “What happened to the 155th brigade” ? “Even French efforts to specialize the brigade could not save it from the bad military decisions of our generals, which ultimately dismantled the unit (…) Now, back in Ukraine, this brigade is dismantled like organs donors for other brigades »she concluded.
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Ukraine: more than 15,000 desertions from the army since the start of 2024, five times more than in 2022
A Ukrainian media war correspondent, Yuriy Butusov, also reported “hundreds” of desertions within the Anne of kyiv brigade. “They forced several thousand street people there. Several hundred, more than a thousand of them, immediately returned home after arriving in the unit.he said in a video at the beginning of December. A whistleblower in Ukraine, Yuriy Butusov has been warning for several months about the considerable increase in desertions within the Ukrainian army, recognized by the authorities themselves. According to official court figures, each month, more than 5,000 Ukrainian soldiers abandon their units or desert. In other words, the equivalent of more than one brigade would evaporate monthly.
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