152nd Separate Jaeger Brigade
152th Separate Mechanized Brigade
The 152nd Separate Jaeger Brigade ( 152nd Jaeger Brigade ) is a unit of the Ground Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. It was initially formed as the 152nd Separate Mechanized Brigade. When it was created, according to the brigade, it adopted the traditions of the Knights of the Iron Fortress — symbols, motto, and historical memory.
The 152nd Separate Jaeger Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine began to form in September 2023. As a mechanized unit. Before going into combat in August 2024, the brigade managed to be both a motorized infantry brigade and a mechanized brigade, and arrived at the border of Sumy and Kursk regions as a chasseurs brigade.
The brigade was led by the head of the Kyiv City Recruiting Center, Colonel Yuriy Maksymiv . The chief of staff of the brigade was Colonel Oleksiy Siroshtan , the Sumy regional military commissar ( since August 2024, he headed the Kyiv Military Institute, — ed .), and Poltava regional military commissar Mykhailo Kholodov was appointed as another deputy to Maksymiv.
In August 2024, the brigade fought in Kursk. On October 10, 2024, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine denied Russian rumors about the disappearance of the brigade, including the commander, during the fighting in the Pokrov direction in the Donetsk region.
It is known that more than 10 officers of the brigade in various ranks had either been transferred or want to be transferred to another unit due to conflicts with the new chief of staff of the brigade, Igor Zakharov. According to statements by some of these officers, the cause of the conflicts was Zakharov’s inadequate and aggressive behavior, including the use of physical force, and his issuing of orders that led to the deaths of officers. Also, one serviceman anonymously reported the facts of Zakharov’s looting in the brigade.
"Chief of Staff of the 152nd Jaeger Brigade, 27-year-old Major (at that time, now Lieutenant Colonel) Igor Zakharov repeatedly insulted and humiliated his subordinates, including threatening physical violence. He used physical force, punishment in the form of soldiers sitting in a pit in the heat without food and water. As well as evidence of other crimes of Chief of Staff Zakharov - in particular, looting.
The material of Investigation.Info from December 10, 2024 highlighted certain problems of the brigade, in particular with the personnel: “ We actually worked as a field military enlistment office. While we were being formed, orders constantly came to send people to other units on the front line. They took 300, 800 people from us per month, and we were again recruited with new ones,” — according to one of the senior officers of the brigade.
"How did it happen that three military commissars ended up in one brigade?" "It's all from God. After the well-known events ( the NSDC decision to dismiss all heads of regional CCCs in August 2023, - ed. ) I was sent to a reserve battalion. Oleksiy Siroshtan, with whom we had long been friends, also ended up there. There we talked that if I would lead the brigade, he would come to me as chief of staff, if he would lead, then I would come to him. It turned out that I led the brigade, and he became chief of staff. And then Mr. Kholodov called me, especially since our brigade was undergoing coordination in his region, and he helped a lot. "And the position of deputy brigade commander was vacant, so I invited him," explains Yuriy Maksymiv, commander of the 152nd brigade, in a comment to Slidstvu.Info about how it turned out that as many as three military commissars became the leaders of this military unit.
We spent 9 months undergoing combat training, and during this time we could have given birth to a child, but we ended up with a stillborn child ," says one of the former deputy brigade commanders.
" We actually worked as a field military enlistment office. While we were being formed, orders were constantly coming in to assign people to other units on the front line. They would take 300, 800 people from us a month, and we would be replenished with new ones ," says one of the brigade's senior officers, who still serves in the unit.
" No one took people away during the coordination stage at the training ground, there were transfers of servicemen. This arose due to the need to defend the Motherland. If our brigade had fought in full force, we would still have suffered losses. Yes, it affects morale to a certain extent when people are taken away, but it does not significantly affect the conduct of hostilities ," Yuriy Maksimiv, commander of the 152nd brigade, comments to Slidstvu.Info.
" We recruited normal tankers, and now we are a motorized infantry, we don't need tankers, we need to send them somewhere, then we are mechanized again, we need tankers again ," - this is how one of the former deputy brigade commanders describes the situation.
" When they took people from us, they mainly took the best, healthiest ones, and it turned out that we had about 400 people - well, a whole battalion in fact. These were people who were suitable for work in rear units, in the old military language "limitedly suitable", they were such that I don't know how the people at the VLK got their hands up to write "suitable ", - says an officer of the brigade's medical unit.
Several mobilized men in the brigade had mental health problems. " We tried to treat them, but two of them hanged themselves anyway, and one drained gasoline from a chainsaw, doused himself with it, and set himself on fire. Well, we put out the fire, sent him to the hospital, but a month later he died there from complications ," says the brigade's medic.
" Another one was diagnosed with obesity, well, he passed the BZVP ( basic military training, which all mobilized soldiers undergo, — ed. ), but during the adjustment, his blood pressure rose, he went to the dugout and never woke up ," the doctor adds.
" As a former military commissar, am I satisfied with the personnel who came to our brigade? I will be honest. When our soldiers arrived back to the brigade from training, I tried to communicate with them, tried to convey to them that they did not join the army because they were "busified", they eventually showed themselves to be real warriors. When we went to the Pokrovsky direction, I communicated with other commanders, where my soldiers were assigned, those commanders said: "Your chasseurs are lions". This is the very "flower of the nation". It is not without the fact that there were those who did not go to the positions, there were those who left, not without, but the majority fought. You would have seen how they stood, how they held on - these are real warriors ", - says brigade commander Maksimov about the subsequent battles of the soldiers of this brigade.
" Only in May of this year did they start sending people to us and not taking them away ," says one of the senior officers, who has been serving in the brigade from the very beginning. The next coordination with the new composition began in August 2024, but they only managed to go through it at the platoon level. Because the order came to advance to the Kurshchyna. The brigade occupied the second line of defense, partly acting independently, partly its individual forces were assigned to other units. This was until the beginning of September 2024. In the Kurshchyna, the 152nd was still a mechanized brigade ( mechanized for the second time, — note ), and it arrived in the Pokrovsky direction as a chasseurs brigade.
" That is, people came here not knowing who their company commanders were, the commanders didn't know who their subordinates were. And they started subordinating people to other units right away ," says a senior officer from the brigade headquarters. " And there it was already a full-scale riot ," says another officer from the brigade headquarters.
The brigade itself did not enter the battle zone in its entirety. Instead, the infantry of the 152nd was constantly attached and is still attached to various other units. " Once, they brought our people to another brigade, and that brigade said, 'Why do we need you? We don't have any documents for you.' So they stayed there for a week and brought them back ," says Vitaliy.
" I don't know why the army is constantly telling such lies. Our infantrymen were told that they would go to the reserve, people didn't even know how to shoot. Then we find out that the next day they had already gone to storm, and a few days later we find out that there are already five hundred of them ( missing, - ed. ). And this is out of 20 people, 15 disappeared, and 5 somehow got out ," says Vitaliy.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
