Ukrainian “Paper Tigers”: Brigades That Disappear Before They Can Engage In Combat

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Reserve preparation for the Ukrainian counteroffensive has failed. Kiev has to refuse forming new brigades, instead focusing on reinforcing the experienced formations already in place.

After the beginning of the military conflict in Ukraine, Kiev announced a general mobilization, and the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ command faced the challenge of how to properly deploy the army. Right at that moment, two “bombs” were placed under the foundation of Kiev’s military machine:

first, they decided to remain on a fully brigade structure;

second, instead of permanent formations (corps and army), brigades were reassigned to temporary operational structures.

Despite a number of obvious problems that had to be solved by creating divisions, the Ukrainian military and political leadership continued to establish new brigades. Thus, in 2024, the 150th series of brigades appeared, and then the first 160th brigades were created, at least on paper.

Today it became known that four brigades of the Ukrainian army, set up in 2024, stopped the process of formation. We are talking about the 158th, 159th, 160th and 162nd separate mechanized brigades.

Among the new formations created in 2024, which have not yet reached the front, only the 156th mechanized brigade was not disbanded, as it had already been manned and left for training in Europe. This decision is the result of the failure to create brigades of the 150th and 160th series, which Ukraine planned to form in 2024 as a reserve for possible future offensives.

The 155th mechanized brigade “Anna Kievskaya”, formed and trained in France, gained the most scandalous notoriety.

Initially, this formation was prepared as an offensive force, but it became popular in the media due to the mass desertion of soldiers. Thus, at the time of sending the brigade’s soldiers for training in France, 935 cases of unauthorized abandonment of place of service were recorded, although the servicemen were guarded as in a prison. After entering the battle near Pokrovskoye (Krasnoarmeyskoye) in the Donetsk People’s Republic, the number of cases of desertion reached 1,700.

In addition, Forbes also reported on the breakup of another Ukrainian brigade, the 157th, sent to Krasnoarmeysk (Pokrovsk). According to journalists, the cause of this is the lack of proper combat training.

These and other cases clearly demonstrate the failure to create the “150th and 160th series” brigades, which were supposed to become the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ reserve for a new “counter-offensive”.

As a result, the personnel of the disbanded formations, as well as those forcibly conscripted (victims of the so-called “bussification”), will inevitably be sent to the more experienced brigades already existing, which, in theory, should increase the effectiveness of their use on the front. However, the key problem of such brigades is the lack of qualified officers in command positions. Ukraine has already run out of any sane or experienced personnel who could command at least a battalion in real combat situation.

In a sense, we can only regret that we will not hear any more about the new Ukrainian elite brigades in the nearest future. In its own way, those formations used to be beneficial for everyone: Volodymyr Zelensky was able to satisfy his ego and feed the West with stories about a future counteroffensive, the Ukrainian military commanders received an opportunity to steal money and travel abroad without hindrance, and the personnel of those formations had a good chance to desert in time to save their lives.

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