Translated material
War
One thousand forty-ninth day. Recruits desert from the Ukrainian Armed Forces brigade trained in France. Patriarch Kirill consecrates crosses for the military with Putin's initials
Since February 24, 2022, Meduza has been broadcasting live about the Russian-Ukrainian war. Our chronicle is published once a day, and in it we dwell in detail on several key stories that are affecting the course of the war right now. We also publish your letters in these materials, because we are sure that we need to continue talking about the war. Please share your personal war stories with us. Find the feedback form at the end of this article. You can read the previous day's review here .
Ukraine
Recruits are deserting en masse from the Ukrainian Armed Forces brigade, trained in France and sent to the hottest sector of the front in Donbass
The State Bureau of Investigation of Ukraine has opened criminal proceedings on abuse of military powers (Article 426-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine) and desertion (Article 408 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine) in the 155th mechanized brigade named after Anna Kievskaya, the BBC Ukrainian Service reports .
Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Alexander Syrsky stated on January 5 that he “paid special attention to problematic issues that need to be resolved” regarding the 155th brigade.
At the end of December, military journalist and editor-in-chief of the publication Censor.Net Yuri Butusov reported problems in the Anna Kievskaya brigade. He spoke in detail about the change of command, the shortage of weapons, as well as mass desertion from the unit.
The 155th brigade was supposed to be an exemplary brigade and one of the first to be fully trained and armed by Ukraine’s Western partners, but in the end it began to give the impression of being incapable of combat, writes the BBC.
The formation began to form in March 2024 under the patronage of France. This fall, 2,300 Anna of Kyiv fighters, most of whom were conscripts with no combat experience, were sent to France for training and training with French military equipment, including Caesar mortars and self-propelled artillery units. As part of the two-month training, Ukrainian fighters also mastered the tactics of clearing buildings, street fighting and coordinating the actions of units in difficult urban conditions.
Upon returning to Ukraine, the Anna Kyiv brigade was sent to the area of the most active hostilities - near Pokrovsk.
According to Yuri Butusov, 1,700 soldiers of the 155th brigade left their place of service without permission, without even entering battle. In addition, 50 soldiers escaped during training in France. In total, according to his estimates, the losses of the brigade amounted to 30% of the personnel numbering about 5.8 thousand military personnel.
The French Ministry of Defense confirmed information that “several dozen” Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers deserted while undergoing training in the country. The department noted that desertion is not a criminal offense in France, so the escapees were not caught.
One of the deserters told Radio Liberty on condition of anonymity that in France the military were at a base fenced with a fence with barbed wire under constant guard and surveillance. “But somehow they managed to escape there too. Honestly, if we weren’t watched like in prison, half of them would have escaped,” he said.
According to Butusov, staff in the 155th brigade changed seven times. In December, amid a desertion scandal, brigade commander Dmitry Ryumshin was fired for failures in motivating fighters and managing the unit. The journalist also pointed out problems with weapons in the brigade. France fully equipped the Anna Kievskaya, but after returning to Ukraine, part of its artillery, primarily the Caesar self-propelled gun division, was seconded to other combat brigades.
As the BBC calculated , from the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion until the end of autumn 2024, the office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine opened more than 95 thousand criminal cases on the fact of unauthorized leaving of duty and desertion by military personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Similar statistics were reported by the Financial Times.
BBC sources in the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine say that the real numbers are even higher - about 100-150 thousand cases of desertion. Journalists attribute the increase in desertion to the moral and physical fatigue of the military who have been at the front since the beginning of the war, as well as to the so-called “busification” - the forced mobilization of Ukrainians who do not want to go to the front.
The representative of the operational command “West”, Colonel Oleg Dombrovsky, called the problems of the 155th brigade “typical” for the Ukrainian Armed Forces. “You see, the problems and situations that arose in this brigade are actually inherent in virtually all of our military bodies that perform tasks on the front line,” he said in a commentary to the BBC. According to Dombrowski, the reasons lie more in personnel rather than in “global issues.” “As they say, what we have, we have. But conclusions need to be drawn from this,” he added.
Russia
Putin celebrated Orthodox Christmas in the company of war veterans - and the patriarch blessed crosses with the president’s initials for the commanders
On the night of January 7, the President of the Russian Federation appeared at a Christmas service in the Church of St. George the Victorious on Poklonnaya Hill in Moscow. According to the Kremlin press service, Vladimir Putin celebrated the Orthodox holiday together with SVO soldiers, volunteers and their families.
As the Agency found out , in the temple the president was surrounded by participants in the “Time of Heroes” personnel program. It was launched to prepare a “new elite” and “competent leaders” for government agencies and state-owned companies from among the participants in the war in Ukraine.
After the service, Putin went to the Cathedral of Christ the Savior - there he wished Patriarch Kirill a Merry Christmas and asked him to consecrate crosses and icons for the commanders of the troop groups participating in the invasion of Ukraine. At Putin’s request, his initials were engraved on individual links of the chains to the crosses, said presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov.
The head of the Russian Orthodox Church actually supports the Russian military invasion of Ukraine. In his sermons, Patriarch Kirill often justifies the reasons for the invasion, arguing that the war was provoked by external forces to weaken Russia.
In a Christmas interview, the patriarch said that “very large forces” were devoted to “stupefying the Ukrainian people” with anti-Russian sentiments. “But I believe that this dope is, you know, a short-term phenomenon, like anesthesia. Then the person wakes up after the narcotic sleep and begins to return to reality, including questioning the visions that he experienced during this narcotic sleep. The same thing will happen. People will understand that this is an obsession,” Kirill said.
According to the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, the “spiritual and cultural potential” of Russians and Ukrainians will triumph over “temporary political errors and crimes that led to a clash between two fraternal peoples and internecine warfare.”
On the night of January 7, Russian troops again attacked Ukraine with drones, the Air Force of the Ukrainian Armed Forces reported . Ukrainian air defense systems shot down 28 Shahed attack drones in Poltava, Sumy, Kharkov, Cherkasy, Nikolaev, Kherson and Kirovograd regions. Another ten simulator drones were “locally lost,” the Ukrainian Armed Forces said. No damage or casualties were recorded as a result of the attack.
War through the eyes of Meduza readers
Natalia (Riga). We are very scared in Latvia. I speak for myself and my circle. Unlike Ukraine, it seems that our small country can be bombed by a “for money yes” horde in three days. Looking at the actions of the United States and Germany, I don’t really believe in the NATO umbrella. I often think about where my family and I will need to hide from bombing. It’s impossible to get out of the basement of my house in the event of a missile strike, and whether [I] will make it to the adjacent underground parking lot is not a fact. I read letters of impotence from the Russian Federation here, and there is only one conclusion - these letters will be the same when your compatriots kill us, in Latvia. “Russian culture” makes me sick. If earlier it somehow penetrated in the form of songs and TV series, now it turns back in any form, despite the fact that the language in my international family was Russian.