Don's Weekly, 13 January 2025: Part 5 (155th Mech... yes, again)

by Donald Hill (with Tom Cooper)

For the end of today’s Don’s Weekly - and, perhaps, in reaction to some of readers ‘wondering’ why have we ‘stopped’ reporting on the catastrophic Ukrainian mismanagement of the establishment and build-up of the 155th Mechanised Brigade… no, we didn’t stop that. We just can’t report solely about this topic, all the time: there are lots of other interesting and/or important developments in this war.

Certainly enough, the catastrophe of that brigade is symptomatic for almost everything that’s going wrong with the Ukrainian war effort:

• from the boy-scout-level of fantasies of the military incompetent that is in charge of the entire country,

• via the incompetence of the Glavcom who is following every of Zelensky’s orders to the last dot and comma, irrespective of the realities on the ground (i.e. the frontlines),

• via the mess Syrsky has caused while appointing all the possible of his buddies into crucial positions at the top of the ZSU (instead of officers with proven skills and merits),

• the resulting systemic incompetence of the entire GenStab-U (i.e. the top brass of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, which is including thousands of officers and other ranks),

• plus the systemic incompetence of the sole command level between Syrsky & Buddies, and the level of the brigade command (see: different of useless territorial commands),

• and the accompanying- (partially also: ‘resulting-’), yet endemic corruption within the top of the civilian and military authorities…

…where, simply expressed, even all of that is ‘still not all’.

Nevertheless, don’t worry: precisely for reasons listed above, we’re going to continue reporting about the ‘Catastrophe known as the 155th Mechanised Brigade’. So also today…

Indeed, few days ago, additional details came to the light. One of its troops - someone who, 20 years ago, graduated from a military department - was appointed to be a platoon leader in the engineer unit. He claimed that after a month in France he learned nothing. Foremost: an officer supposed to command, to bear responsibility for troops and equipment, didn’t feel qualified to do so. He also said that troops were firing weapons and running through trenches but the level of training received was not worth the money spent.

Another officer involved in the formation of the brigade said not only that everything Butusov wrote was true (see our earlier coverage, for example here: Don’s Weekly, 6 January 2025, Part 5), but: actually, it was worse than what Butusov wrote.

***

Meanwhile, Mykhailo Drapatyi, Commander of the Ground Forces ZSU, released a statement saying that the issues of the 155th Brigade happened on his watch and it is his duty to systematically solve the issues. He met with the military and French journalists covering the brigade and met with the brigade staff in the field. He says that none of the issues are the responsibility of France and they are grateful for the French support, but this was the first time such a project was attempted, "not all services worked excellently”. He said they would correct the mistakes and make sure they are not repeated in the future.

In general terms, Drapatyi listed problems that were the responsibility of the higher commands. He says that 155th now has a working group from his command that will make sure all the problems are resolved and he is overseeing the working group. The soldiers of the 155th have their own hotline to call and provide information and concerns. Some of the soldiers who left have returned. He is confident that the soldiers' needs will be met and the brigade will be an effective fighting force.

…aha.

Just… sorry, but this means that now the High Command of the ZSU Ground Forces is going to spend lots of time and energy trying to solve problems of a SINGLE brigade?

Oh dear…

OK. Lets move on. The next point…

By side the ‘traditional’ Ukrainian predilection for being thankful and not complaining about the quality (or the lack of same) of the Western aid. But: Drapatyi has been in his position a little more than a month. Thus, while it’s noble from him to declare himself for being responsible, one must hope this is a genuine act, not something he’s been told to say.

With Syrsky in charge, and surrounding himself by his buddies: one can never be sure…

On the other hand, solving all the problems caused both by his superior (Syrsky) and predecessors in his position, and different of his aides (the mass of whom are Syrsky’s Buddies), will be a good test to see how well is Drapatyi’s personal oversight working, how much influence has he really got, and how much free hand and skills has he got in solving the resulting problems.

….and then, ‘even if’ he turns out to be ‘highly successful’, at most, he’s going to improve the capabilities of one brigade: the 155th.

What is with other 100+ brigades and independent battalions….?

Actually, the situation of the ZSU’s Ground Forces is meanwhile so dear, it’s going to be the Drapatyi’s capability to systematically improve the capabilities of the entire army that is going to matter the most.

***

Meanwhile… as reported back in December, the GenStab-U brought the decision to develop the corps command structure; no division-level command structure. Official reason is that the cost of setting up divisional organizations would be ‘too high’.

….which, unavailingly, is imposing the question of the cost of losing hundreds of troops, lots of equipment, and additional terrain, including Toretsk, Kurachove, several mines etc, just in the last two months…

Fact is: ANY improvement would be beneficial. However, so far there are no public indications at least that corps commands are in the process of being set up.

Sure, this can easily happen when Syrsky is busy micromanaging - and losing - the battle of Pokrovsk, while Drapatyi is busy micromanaging the repairs of the 155th Mech, battalions of which are strewn anywhere between Kursk and Velyka Novosika….

Besides… well, lets say the corps commands do emerge… somehow… perhaps on their own… by pure accident or something: if any of resulting corps commands ends up commanding 25 brigades… or 31 different battalions from 14 different brigades… well, then: sorry, that’s going to be no improvement at all.

***

Another important issue - but: one NOBODY in Ukraine is discussing at all - is the practice of detaching battalions from brigades and sending them to plug holes in sectors that are falling apart. By best will and all respect due (where there is very little left to respect in regards of Syrsky & Buddies’s ‘skills’), this has only one effect: it is reducing the combat power of cohesive brigades, and solely resulting in detached battalions finding themselves isolated while tasked to defend sectors with no, or very little coordination with adjacent units. By side that this is often happening even to battalions from the same brigades - whether due to incompetence or poor training of specific brigade-commanders - but: it is happening even when disparate battalions drawn from different brigades area all assigned to the headquarters of the same brigade.

Foremost: the resulting unit fragmentation will be difficult to reverse because the different sectors are now dependent on the detached units, while there is urgency - really reaching the levels of a matter of national survival - to restore unit cohesion: battalions drawn from brigades chopped to pieces must be returned to their units to restore (and, potentially: multiply) the combat power of their parent units.

However, how is Drapatyi intending to stop this practice, diligently exercised by Syrsky all the time - already since 24 February 2022 - and so also until the last few days, too?

As said: this is meanwhile yet another critical issue. The situation evolved because of low levels of manpower and because of poor management and miserable training of the troops that are nowadays around. Nothing of this has been improved, which in turn means that the situation is getting worse by the day.

Perhaps the best example for results of such practices if that of Toretsk. This sector was stabile for two years. Then a good brigade was withdrawn from there, replaced by a poor one. The Russians assaulted the poor one, started a months-long grinding advance and gained something like eight kilometres. The 12th NG Azov was brought in, almost pushed them out of the town. However… what happend as next?

According to the MilitaryLand.net, the ZSU has 5 brigades and 5 battalions in the sector. Two of the battalions are separate (independent) battalions. Three were detached from other brigades. When there was a crisis at Velyka Novosilka, Syrsky detached a battalion from this sector and sent it in that direction. However, he didn’t send one of the three detached battalions or one of the two separate battalions: he’s sent a battalion from the 100th Mechanised Brigade, which until then was intact; had all of its elements deployed in the Toretsk sector.

Such practices not only have to stop: ideally, they would be reversed, too. But, amid the resulting chaos, try to find an intact ZSU brigade one could, for example, send either to Velyka Novosilka or to Toretsk, in turn enabling the miscellany of battalions deployed in both sectors to be returned to parent units…

On the contrary, Syrsky remains busy continuing to increase the number of such cases. Meanwhile, even the Siversk Sector is feeling the impacts. This used to be a stable sector: in seven months of grinding assaults the Russians gained up to 1500 meters along its southern edge. However, when the Russians made a small crossing at Dvorichne and Dvorichna (that eventually could have turned into a big crossing), Syrsky didn’t return the already detached 3rd Battalion of the 54th Mechanized Brigade that was fighting alongside the 10th Mountain Assault Brigade. He detached a battalion of the 10th Brigade and sent it to the Siversk sector instead…

It is understandable that Russia has the strategic initiative and Ukraine is all the time forced to react. However, Syrsky’s operational responses are much too slow (frequently by one to two weeks, but at least as often they are months late!), they are chaotic and haphazard, and making any future reactions ever more difficult and even slower.

How about another eaxample? Take the Russian attack towards Pischane. That was no rapid maneouvre: it evolved over months. Somehow, Syrsky neither managed to construct defences on a rather narrow sector on time, nor in proper positions (so these could hinder a Russian penetration), and then he also never found enough forces to stop that penetration. Eventually, the Russians upped the ante and hit the flanks too, which proved extremely vulnerable. When the attack finally reached the Oskil river, the Ukrainians conducted counterattacks at the edge of the advance that were very briefly successful, but they could not hold their positions in the long term. And so a narrow penetration made adjacent positions more vulnerable and slowly became a broad penetration…

….and this scenery is repeated again, and again and again, and until this very day Syrsky never found a solution.

What’s worse: the regular result of such penetrations is the increased frontage, which in turn requires ever more troops. As of 1 July 2024, the front from Kyslivka to Dzherelne was 31 km long. With 1 January 2025, it was 56 km long. That’s an extra 25 km of frontage that Ukraine is now forced to defend. Thanks to a series of Syrsky’s late decisions and mistakes. Had the troops currently defending a frontline of 56 kilometres been in place as of 1 July, the Russian gains would remain minimal - if there would have been any.

Therefore, one cannot but wonder: how comes Syrsky was able to find forces necessary to defend a frontline of 56 kilometres as of 1 January 2025, but not to defend a frontline of 31 kilometres as of 1 July 2024?

Sorry, but the only answer is: incompetence. Syrsky’s, that of his buddy-advisers, and that of different of subordinates appointed by Syrsky.

***

All of this is resulting in yet another two major issues troubling the ZSU: the issues of the force needing to create reserves and improve the overall combat effectiveness of troops.

To understand this, consider the 72nd Brigade - the unit that used to defend Vuhledar for 1,5 years, before that sector became the literal ‘forgotten corner’ of this war.

As the Russian attacks continued over the months, and then for more than a year, the 72nd Brigade inevitably suffered casualties that were not replaced. These casualties were highly-experienced troops, lots of them serving already for years, and - just for example - experienced from defeating two near-complete VDV divisions in Moshchun, in March 2022, plus then of two naval infantry brigades on Vuhledar, in January 2023.

However, after the defence succcess in Vuhledar of early 2023, it’s not only that they have received next to no replacements (these went into to the formation of new brigades), but the few reinforcements the brigade did receive were nowhere near as well-trained or as combat-experienced as troops shoot away. Actually; most of them have barely received any kind of serious military training…

As a result, the 72nd Brigade was never enable to create at least it own reserve. Atop of that, both the next command level responsible for that sector and the GenStab-U (i.e. Syrsky & Buddies) ‘sat’ there, doing nothing: they never created reserve units to counter any Russian penetrations in the Vuhledar sector. At least to secure the flanks of the 72nd.

Again, low levels of manpower are a constant issue, but when the sector collapsed, reserves were somehow found and chaotically rushed to fill the gaps?

If those reserves existed before the collapse, and if the 72nd Brigade was maintained at full strength, then it is very likely that any Russian advances would have been slower, if they advanced at all. A reserve battalion could have counterattacked and helped the 72nd restore the line and then withdrawn back into reserve status after control was reestablished.

All sectors should have a reserve. The reserve unit could be a separate battalion or it could be one of the battalions of a brigade holding the line. The 3rd Assault Brigade attacked for six months south of Bakhmut, from May-October 2023. During that time, one battalion was attacking, one was holding the defensive line and one was in reserve, resting and refitting, and ready in case there was an emergency. The brigade not only managed to reclaim 8 kilometers of territory in that time. More importantly, it devastated five Russian brigades and suffered very low casualties of their own - and that while testing, and then expanding its structure (for example: it abandoned the concept of ‘light infantry battalions’, entirely). Conclusion: if the 3rd Assault was capable of not only maintaining a reserve while running effective offensive operations, but also of reorganising its structure and then expanding - in form of creating ever additional, well-trained and -organised battaliosn - then other units that are not stretched thin should be able of doing the same.

‘…but, that’s an Azov unit’ - is no excuse for a failure as massive as this one.

***

Drapatyi’s challenge is to establish stable sectors, man the sectors with complete brigades and establish a reserve force in each sector.

As mentioned above: Drapatyi has only been in his position for a little more than a month. He was very successful at lower levels of command. He’s speaking the right words now.

It remains to be seen if he has the vision to reorganize the army in its structure and use.

If he does have the vision, he must implement it through the staff that existed when all these issues and practices occurred. He must overcome the political influences and bureaucratic inertia of an inefficient organization and reform it into an army of systems and accountability that encourages initiative.

That is a difficult task for anyone, even a man of talent and vision. However, that is precisely what Ukraine needs right now.