The Ukrainian military’s overall commander General Oleksandr Syrsky on Monday ordered a formal investigation into allegations top officers in a combat brigade deployed to the critical eastern Pokrovsk sector had lost ground and soldier lives because of tactical incompetence.
Official army sources said the unit was holding its ground in heavy combat and that claims of problems inside the brigade were overblown. An officer from the 59th Motorized Infantry Brigade contacted by Kyiv Post said the same thing.
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According to a Monday statement from Ukraine’s Army General Staff (AGS), a top-level Army Chief of Staff (ACS) evaluation team would “conduct checks” among staff serving with the 59th Separate Motorized Infantry Brigade to clarify “circumstances of recent losses of personnel.”
Since taking over command of the Ukrainian military in February 2024, Syrsky, a commander with a reputation for demanding discipline and strict enforcement of the chain of command from subordinates, has rarely made public possible internal problems in a combat unit.
A longstanding fighting formation with combat experience in the southern Kherson and eastern Donbas sectors, the 59th Brigade, according to open-source reports, is deployed to the west of the city of Donetsk, the site of a major Russian offensive aiming for the regional road hub of Pokrovsk.
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The Monday morning Ukrainian army daily situation update identified the Pokrovsk sector as the single most kinetic sector of the entire fighting front, with 35 Russian attacks against Ukrainian positions in the past 24 hours. The battlefield situation was “tense” but Ukrainian forces were holding, that statement said.
The General Syrsky-signed announcement that the 59th Brigade, a key piece of the Armed Forces of Ukraine’s (AFU) defenses in Ukraine’s east, would be investigated followed one day after allegations by Kateryna Polishchuk, a high-profile volunteer medic and survivor of the 2022 Mariupol Siege, of possible leadership problems inside the unit.
In posts to Facebook and other social media, Polishchuk charged the 59th Brigade’s top officers with tactical incompetence and having been promoted thanks to nepotism.
Using terms like “lawlessness,” “thoughtless criminal orders,” and “completely unnecessary losses,” Polishchuk, an internet personality best known for her nickname “Ptashka” (Birdie) and bravery medals given her by President Volodymyr Zelensky, accused the 59th brigade commander of having ordered key senior personnel from the brigade staff to front lines to serve as infantrymen, where most were killed or wounded.
“A few weeks ago, on his direct order, almost the entire top intelligence of the brigade was sent to the advanced positions, absolutely without any need for it. As a result: the intelligence chief of the brigade – killed, the artillery chief of one of the attached battalions – killed, the chief sergeant of the intelligence company – killed, the commander of the intelligence company – wounded…by these actions the commanding general destroyed the entire intelligence management unit of the brigade,” Polishchuk claimed.
In a Sunday Facebook post, Polishchuk said the investigation should look into: “criminal orders, deliberate negligence, disregard for the life and health of personnel, actions that led to the deaths of a large number of military personnel, including those from high leadership positions, selfishness, blind careerism, the sacking of commanders “in disagreement”…(and)…inhumane and unprofessional attitude.” She went on to announce her group was ending ambulance and evacuation support to the brigade.
Other Ukrainian media widely covered the Russian offensive towards Pokrovsk and, like Polishchuk, identified the 59th Brigade commander by name and pointed to the town Krasnohorivka as the scene of a recent, bloody Ukrainian defeat purportedly caused by poor leadership.
Kyiv Post was unable to contact the officer for comment about the allegations made against him.
Elements of the 59th Brigade, in the first two weeks of July, were hit by repeated Russian attacks and lost control of most of Krasnohorivka – a tactically important town some 18 kilometers (11 miles) to the west of the Russian-occupied city of Donetsk.
High-profile Ukrainian military correspondent Yury Butusov was one of the first to raise a red flag that the situation Krasnohorivka was deteriorating, reporting on July 2 that the 59th Brigade commander had been promoted too quickly because of nepotism, and that the Russian assault towards Pokrovsk caught him and his staff flat-footed.
“(The 59th Brigade commander) does not cope with his duties, battles are going on in the city, the enemy is advancing, and the complete loss of the city of Krasnohorivka is becoming real…The situation is critical, the enemy has an advantage, so let's improve at least what we can quickly change – the quality of management, the order and organization of our forces, Butusov wrote, calling on Syrsky to overhaul brigade leadership. There was no clear official response to the journalist’s public appeal.
The medic Polishchuk’s demand that Syrsky do something about alleged chaos in 59th Brigade’s senior command group, and purported heavy losses of ground in Krasnohorivka and defensive positions nearby, came nearly two weeks after Butusov’s report.
Polishchuk in other claims accused 59th Brigade leadership of launching recently recruited troops assigned to the unit to bloody and unsuccessful attempts to regain lost ground with counterattacks – although the soldiers had less than two months of training. Fighting the Russian army by micromanagement, without visiting the front line, is ineffective, Butusov charged.
Serhiy Tsekhotsky, an officer serving with the 59th for more than two years, in comments to Kyiv Post rejected those claims.
He said the brigade and Ukrainian defenses around it were not only holding their ground, but inflicting crushing damage on Russian personnel and combat equipment.
“We are cutting them to pieces,” Tsekhotsky said. “Their losses are massive.”
Tsekhotsky said that according to official brigade counts, over June, men and officers from the 59th claimed credit for the destruction of 2,969 Russian service personnel in battle. That figure is consistent with heavy Russian losses registered by independent observers, among them Iceland’s Ragnarr Gudmundsson.
Tsekhotsky told Kyiv Post the Syrsky-ordered inspection would find a combat-capable unit with a strong command staff and said the inspectors could conclude Polishchuk’s allegations against the brigade’s senior officers were personally motivated.
The Kremlin has called the capture of all of Ukraine’s Donetsk region a war aim and for more than eighteen months has gradually expanded control over the region using high casualty, but sometimes successful, infantry attacks, backed by artillery and air strikes.
According to Kremlin claims, Ukrainian forces elsewhere in the eastern sector lost ground with the Russian capture of the villages of Novoselivka Persha, Yasnobrodivka and Progress.
The independent military information platform DeepState confirmed the Ukrainian losses, however, Joint Forces Khortytsia, the Ukrainian army overall command headquarters in the eastern sector, claimed Ukrainian forces were holding at all those locations. A morning AGS situation estimate reported heavy fighting but no loss of ground.
A Monday UNIAN news agency report said that Russia’s heaviest assaults – usually a mix of infantry backed by artillery and air strikes – currently were targeting the village of Novooleksandrivka, some 25 kilometers (16 miles) to the east of Pokrovsk.
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