The French army, which trained a Ukrainian brigade in France before it went to the front, noted “a few dozen” desertions during training, according to the general staff, while a Ukrainian commander admitted “ problems” within this unit.
“There have been a certain number of desertions, but they remain very marginal given the volume of people who have been trained,” a French general staff official told AFP on Monday. According to him, the trained soldiers were subject to “a regime (…) imposed by the Ukrainian command”.
But “we do not criminalize desertion in France,” he stressed. “If someone deserted, a French prosecutor had no authority to arrest that individual. And the right granted to the Ukrainian authorities on French soil is just a disciplinary right.”
He clarified that he did not yet have consolidated figures but estimated that it was “in the order of a few dozen” desertions on French territory.
Cases of suspected abuse of power
Named Anne of kyiv after the wife of the King of France Henry I, the brigade took as its motto the slogan of the Battle of Verdun: “They will not pass”.
Of this unit of 4,500 soldiers, the general staff, three infantry battalions and their support (engineering, artillery, ground-air defense and reconnaissance) were trained in France, i.e. around 2,000 men, 90% of conscripts with no combat experience, accompanied by 300 Ukrainian supervisors. The rest of the unit was trained in Ukraine.
The commander of the Ukrainian land forces Mikhaïlo Drapaty recognized on Monday “problems” within this brigade, after press revelations on cases of abuse of power and desertions.
“I confirm of course that there were problems with the command and the training process,” he admitted to several media, including AFP, but “perhaps not on the scale ( …) presented”.
According to renowned Ukrainian journalist Yuri Boutoussov, nearly 1,700 soldiers from the brigade deserted, most of them before their unit was even deployed to the front, and 50 during training in France.
“I don't really see what could be characterized as an abuse of power,” said the head of the French general staff. “In any case, there is nothing that has been reported concerning the parking of Ukrainians in France or what happened during these training sessions.”
He insisted that the training had been “in accordance” with the wishes of the Ukrainians, in terms of “equipment, training time and level”.
France
