When Russian Troops Attacked in Northern Ukraine, Ukrainian Territorials Fled Their Trenches. Can You Blame Them?
Ukrainian territorial brigades lack heavy weaponry.
When, in late April, the Russian army’s 30th Motor Rifle Brigade broke through Ukrainian lines near Ocheretyne, just west of the ruins of Avdiivka, Ukrainian brigades rushed to contain the salient—and to point fingers. The Ukrainian army’s 115th Mechanized Brigade, which had rotated into Ocheretyne just before the Russian attack, caught much of the blame.
Three weeks later, a new grouping of Russian forces marched into northern Ukraine and captured a chain of villages in the easily-bombarded “gray zone” 20 miles north of Kharkiv. Again, Ukrainian troops are faulting each other.
It’s possible Ukrainian defenses in the area were even thinner than they should have been. “The first line of fortifications and mines simply did not exist,” Ukrainian army officer Denis Yaroslavsky claimed, partially blaming Ukrainian territorial troops from the 125th Brigade who previously held the purportedly incomplete defenses.
Ukrainian analysis group Frontelligence Insight endorsed Yaroslavsky’s claim—with caveats. In recent satellite imagery of Krasne, one of the border villages the Russians captured, “you can see fortified and communication trenches,” Frontelligence Insight noted. “Some of these are older Russian positions, while others were built in 2023.”
As Russian platoons attacked last week, “some of these positions were abandoned, allowing Russian forces to occupy them,” Frontelligence Insight explained. The group’s use of the passive voice obscures who abandoned the positions: the territorials from the 125th Brigade.
What’s especially galling is that the brigade knew the attack was coming: Ukrainian intelligence had spotted Russian forces massing along the border. “The abandonment of positions and [Russian] advancement beyond the gray zone indicates brigade leadership's and the strategic command's inability to react to threats despite having intel,” Frontelligence Insight wrote.
But it may have been foolish for Ukrainian commanders to count on a lightly-equipped territorial brigade—which lacks tanks, modern fighting vehicles and organic artillery—to hold the outermost trenches against Russian mechanized troops while under bombardment from Russian artillery and warplanes.
Yes, the 125th Brigade may have abandoned its positions, but can you really blame it? “Territorial defense units should not be tasked with halting the primary enemy advance,” Frontelligence Insight stressed.
In the days following the initial Russian attacks across the border, the Ukrainian army rushed heavy brigades north, including the 59th Motorized Brigade and the 93rd Assault Brigade, the latter with modern CV90 fighting vehicles.
These heavier forces have halted the Russian advance. But maybe those brigades should have been at the front all along, instead of waiting for the territorials to collapse before moving in.
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