The newly created and NATO-trained Ukrainian Anna of Kiev brigade has been forced to dissolve after experiencing mass desertions. Up to 1700 of the brigade’s 4500 soldiers are reported to have deserted.

It is at the beginning of last year that the grand plan is formulated: the creation of fourteen completely new Ukrainian brigades to push the Russians out of Ukraine.

Ukraine will provide the manpower. NATO countries will provide training and armament. Weapons and equipment for each new brigade are estimated to cost around ten billion Swedish kronor.

Creating new brigades instead of reinforcing existing ones is considered a better solution. This way, the new units can relieve the old, often very war-weary troops at the front.

Anna of Kiev Brigade

In March last year, work began on the first such brigade: the Anna of Kiev Brigade, named after France’s Kiev-born queen during the mid-11th century.

In June, the recruitment process began, but by the end of summer, the project encountered problems. 2550 men, more than half of the soldiers recruited for the Anna of Kiev Brigade, were instead sent to the front where they were desperately needed to reinforce existing units. This is something that the Ukrainian journalist Yuri Butusov writes about on Facebook.

It is then France that takes the lead in training the new brigade, and some of the soldiers who are to be part of the new brigade are sent to that country for training.

In October, training has begun at an army base in the Grand Est region near the German border. Macron is present, shaking hands with the Ukrainian soldiers and posting pictures and videos from the meeting on social media.

The French military donates some of its most state-of-the-art equipment to the newly created brigade. 128 troop transport vehicles, 18 armored personnel carriers, and as many self-propelled howitzers. In addition, air defense missiles, trucks, and vehicles for medical evacuation.

Mass Desertions and Dissolution

But the problems with the newly created brigade continue in France. The majority of the nearly 2000 soldiers being trained at the French army base have little or no previous military experience. Over 1400 are essentially brand new recruits. And about 50 of those sent to France for training simply abscond from the base. They desert.

Even worse is the situation in Ukraine. Those recruited for the new French-trained brigade are deserting on a large scale. 700 immediately after being placed in it. According to the French newspaper Le Figaro and the news agency AFP, who have spoken with Ukrainian investigators, nearly 1700 of the brigade’s 4500 soldiers have ultimately deserted. About four out of ten men.

After training, what remains of the brigade is sent to Pokrovsk, where some of the fiercest fighting is taking place. There, the brigade, which has not been equipped with either drones or electronic warfare equipment, suffers “significant losses”.

According to the British The Telegraph, which also highlights the NATO-trained brigade, the Ukrainian commanders choose to ultimately dissolve it. The soldiers and equipment are instead distributed to existing brigades already participating in the fighting at Pokrovsk.

Critics now argue that the creation of new Ukrainian NATO-trained brigades has been nothing but an “idiotic” PR project that was doomed to fail. And that it would have been much better if the new weapons had been given to existing combat-experienced units instead of new and inexperienced ones.