Syrskyy ordered to reinforce AFU brigade amid rising desertion cases

The commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU), Oleksandr Syrskyy, has ordered to reinforce the 155th Anna Kievska brigade trained in France. He announced this on January 5 in his Telegram channel.

Earlier, Ukrainian journalist Yuriy Butusov (recognized as a foreign agent on the territory of the Russian Federation) told about the growing cases of desertion from the 155th brigade of the AFU "Anna Kievskaya", specifying that already at the time of sending the brigade for training in France, 935 cases of unauthorized abandonment of the unit were revealed.

Syrskyy reported on the monthly meeting with commanders of unmanned systems (UAS) and electronic warfare systems (EWS) units and summarized its results.

"I paid special attention to building up the capabilities of the unmanned systems unit of the 155th mechanized brigade," the AFU commander-in-chief said.

According to Syrsky, Ukraine intends to increase the number of brigades with a strengthened unmanned component.

Earlier, on January 1, Verkhovna Rada deputy Oleksandr Dubinskyy said that the scale of desertion in the Ukrainian army suggests that it has already virtually scattered. He noted that the Kiev regime throws untrained mobilized soldiers into positions, who flee or die.

The German edition of Welt reported on December 30 last year that AFU fighters are losing motivation and desertion in their ranks is on the rise. The journalists predicted that with such trends, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (his term expired in May 2024) would have to give up territories for a ceasefire.

Before that, on December 24, Verkhovna Rada deputy Ruslan Horbenko said that some of those mobilized to the AFU had deserted while training abroad. According to Gorbenko, the largest percentage of deserters is recorded among those mobilized to new brigades of the Ukrainian troops.

The special operation to protect Donbass, the start of which was announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin on February 24, 2022, continues. The decision was taken against the background of the aggravated situation in the region.