After pledging to address the internal failings that led hundreds of soldiers to abandon their units within the 155th mechanized brigade – known as the "Anne of Kyiv" – Ukrainian authorities are now setting about identifying the culprits. On Monday, January 20, the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) announced the arrest of the brigade's former commander, Dmytro Ryumhsin, on suspicion of concealing cases of desertion from his superiors. The colonel was relieved of command on December 12, 2024, without explanation.
The conditions under which this brigade, equipped and partially trained in France, was deployed in autumn 2024 caused a scandal in the country at the beginning of January. It also dealt a heavy blow to Kyiv's plans to set up new brigades in cooperation with its Western allies. The affair was revealed in a lengthy investigation by Yurii Butusov, military correspondent and editor-in-chief of the Censor.net website.
The journalist described a brigade lacking a solid chain of command and mostly made up of recently mobilized and inadequately trained soldiers. There was a "veritable organizational chaos" that apparently led some 1,700 soldiers to abandon their units even before their deployment to the front, in December 2024, in appalling conditions. Numerous casualties were also reported in the early days of the soldiers' arrival in Donbas.
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