It is one of the symbols of cooperation between Paris and kyiv. The brigade of Ukrainian soldiers trained by France would experience a wave of desertion. She was sent to the front at Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine and suffered significant losses.
According to the investigation by Ukrainian journalist Yuri Boutoussov, several hundred men reportedly left the unit upon their return to Ukraine. And before that, some would have stayed in France to escape the combat. He explained that the kyiv Anne Brigade was formed in June, but by the summer the first soldiers were dispersed to other units lacking fighters.
On his YouTube channel, the journalist claimed that the Ukrainian General Staff then recruited anyone to replenish the ranks of the brigade. “They took a few thousand people from the streets, from the buses, they put them in uniform and they called it a brigade. As a result, many quickly deserted” he said.
In total, they are nearly 1,700 to have left the ranks between summer and November, including 50 during their training in France. A figure that RTL was, however, unable to verify.
The rest of the brigade was sent to the front in Pokrovsk in mid-December, where the fighting was extremely violent. Yuri Boutoussov denounces the lack of equipment and the incompetence of the army’s command structures, without calling into question the instruction given by the French military to Ukrainian soldiers.
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