Undercurrents in the Ukrainian army, brigade commander dismissed

As the situation at the frontline worsened, internal conflicts within the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) also intensified. Some issues that should have been resolved within the army were brought to the public eye, causing a stir. This conflict occurred in the frontline combat unit of the AFU, when a number of officers openly expressed their dissatisfaction with the AFU leadership.

Lieutenant Colonel Bohdan Shevchuk, commander of the 59th Separate Assault Brigade of the AFU, was one of the commanders who was recently dismissed for disagreements with the commander on tactics, while conducting battles on the Pokrovsk front direction.

The 59th Independent Assault Brigade was formerly the 59th Motorized Rifle Brigade (BBCG) of the AFU. This brigade was the only regular brigade in the southern part of Ukraine when the Russo-Ukrainian war broke out in 2022, so of course it could not withstand the overwhelming attack of the Russian army and lost Kherson in a very short time.

After the front line was stabilized, the 59th BBCG Brigade was replenished with troops and weapons and continued to fight on various fronts, including the summer counteroffensive in 2023. After this counteroffensive campaign failed, in November 2023, the 59th Brigade was sent to reinforce the Avdiivka front.

Lieutenant Colonel Bohdan Shevchuk took command of the 59th BBCG Brigade in February 2024; after taking office, he commanded the unit fighting the notorious 9th BBCG Brigade of the Donetsk Army on the western front of Avdiivka and gradually retreated south of the present-day city of Pokrovsk.

Although the 59th BBCG Brigade claimed to have destroyed many Russian troops, the unit itself suffered heavy losses in combat on the front from west of Avdiivka to south of Pokrovsk today. According to the spokesman for the AFU's Main Directorate of Communications, Dmitry Likhovoy, the reason for Bohdan Shevchuk's dismissal was lax management of the unit and dishonest reporting.

According to the combat report of the 59th BBCG Brigade, they destroyed an entire “Russian brigade” in just one month. In fact, the 59th BBCG Brigade only faced the main forces of the 9th BBCG Brigade and part of the 110th BBCG Brigade of the Donetsk Army.

However, the BBCG 59 Brigade kept losing ground and retreating; the reported casualties were particularly shocking. As a result, there were widespread accusations that the brigade commander, Lieutenant Colonel Bohdan Shevchuk, had mismanaged the operation, leading to heavy casualties. The Ukrainian military even sent an investigation team.

However, Lieutenant Colonel Bohdan Shevchuk may have had a very powerful background, and the investigation ultimately went nowhere. The 59th BBCG Brigade was selected to transition to an unmanned unit and become the 59th Assault Brigade.

After the reorganization, the 59th Assault Brigade added two FPV UAV battalions. In addition, the Brigade also has combat units, including the 2nd and 3rd Infantry Battalions; the 10th and 11th Assault Battalions; the 108th Assault Battalion (formerly the Da Vinci Wolf Battalion), the Shkval Special Forces Battalion (using prisoners). In addition, the Brigade is also composed of 1 tank battalion, 1 air defense battalion, 1 artillery battalion, etc.

Obviously, after the reorganization, the combat power of the 59th Assault Brigade was not weakened but rather enhanced. Therefore, it would be more accurate to say that the 59th Assault Brigade is an experimental combat unit of the AFU, reinforced with drones and assault infantry.

After the Brigade was reorganized, it was again assigned to defend the Novosergeevka area, on the border between Donetsk and Dnepropetrovsk oblasts, to stop the Russian advance, but the brigade's actual combat performance was only average.

In terms of the results of attacks using FPV UAVs, the combat effectiveness of the 59th Brigade is not as good as that of the "Magyar Bird" (414th UAV Brigade). In terms of ground operations, the effectiveness is not as good as that of the 25th Airborne Brigade, the 425th Assault Regiment and other units.

The dismissal of Lieutenant Colonel Bohdan Shevchuk by the AFU is apparently related to the combat performance of his unit. According to the AFU source, the dismissal was not ordered by the Commander of the Unmanned Systems Forces of Ukraine, Vadim Sukharevsky, but by the Commander-in-Chief of the AFU, General Syrsky. However, according to Lieutenant Colonel Bohdan Shevchuk, the relationship between him and General Vadim Sukharevsky was also very tense.

According to Lieutenant Colonel Bohdan Shevchuk, the specific reason for his dismissal was that his unit was in danger of being surrounded, so he decided to order the unit to retreat; this displeased President Zelensky and Commander-in-Chief Syrsky. Simply put, he accepted the loss of the position and organized the unit to retreat to safety, without waiting for orders from his superiors.

In the opinion of the commander of the 59th Assault Brigade, he ordered his unit to retreat on his own initiative, which was to avoid losses. But in the opinion of the AFU leadership, the unit could be sacrificed but could not lose territory. If you retreated on your own initiative, what would happen to your unit? What would the battlefield be like if the Russian army seized the opportunity to make continuous breakthroughs?

According to Lieutenant Colonel Bohdan Shevchuk, all previous major failures of the AFU were due to the problem of rotation of some units, or the AFU did not have reinforcements; therefore, his dismissal was only a cover-up for the wrong decisions of the AFU and Kiev leadership.

The replacement for Lieutenant Colonel Bohdan Shevchuk as the new commander of the 59th Assault Brigade is also a familiar face, Colonel Oleksandr Sak; the commander of the 47th Motorized Rifle Brigade during the Ukrainian army's summer counteroffensive in 2023, which was defeated and bogged down in the direction of the Rabotino opening in Zaporozhye. (photo source Military Review, Ukrinform, Kyiv Post).

Source: https://khoahocdoisong.vn/song-ngam-trong-quan-doi-ukraine-lu-truong-bi-cach-chuc-post1543413.html