The story of 152nd Jaeger Brigade

The Ukrainian Army continues to establish new brigades despite a severe personnel shortage in existing units. While this approach has drawn criticism from soldiers and lower-ranking commanders, it is defended by the General Staff and the President of Ukraine. According to official statements, the strategy is necessary for rotations, sustaining combat readiness, and reinforcing units in areas where the enemy has a clear manpower advantage or is conducting active assault operations.

The 152nd Jaeger Brigade of Ukraine’s Armed Forces began forming in September 2023 as a mechanized unit. By August 2024, prior to deployment, it had undergone several transitions—from mechanized to motorized infantry and back to mechanized. The brigade was commanded by Colonel Yurii Maksymiv, head of Kyiv’s recruitment center. Its staff included Colonel Oleksii Siroshtan, a former military commissioner from Sumy, and Colonel Mykhailo Kholodov, the former Poltava regional military commissioner. All were among the recruitment center heads dismissed in August 2023 during a nationwide overhaul of regional recruiting leadership.

The brigade spent nine months in training, but primarily functioned as a field recruitment center. “While we were being formed, orders constantly came to transfer our personnel to other frontline units. Each month, they took between 300 and 800 soldiers from us, and we had to replenish our ranks with new recruits,” explained a senior officer still serving in the unit to Slidstvo.Info.

The unit’s rebranding only added to the challenges. “We recruited tank operators, but then we were reclassified as motorized infantry and no longer needed them, so they had to be reassigned. Later, we switched back to mechanized infantry, and suddenly we needed tank operators again,” explained a former deputy commander of the brigade.

In May 2024, the brigade began receiving new personnel without reassignment, signaling a shift in its operations. However, when training resumed with the fresh recruits in August 2024, it was only completed at the platoon level before the brigade was deployed to the Kursk region. There, they assumed a second-line defensive role, operating both independently and in coordination with other units. By September 2024, the brigade transitioned from mechanized infantry to a jaeger unit to support operations in the Pokrovsk direction. This constant reshuffling of roles and personnel compounded the brigade’s challenges. Soldiers arrived in Pokrovsk without knowing who their company commanders were, and the commanders had no knowledge of their subordinates.

The brigade did not deploy to Pokrovsk at full strength. Instead, smaller units were attached—and remain attached—to other formations. In some cases, soldiers from the brigade were sent to another unit without proper documentation, leaving the receiving unit unable to officially accept them. As a result, these soldiers spent a week idle in the rear before being sent back to their original brigade. According to a senior officer, soldiers from the 152nd Jaeger Brigade are currently attached to 15 different units. “I don’t understand why there’s so much constant lying in the army right now. Our infantry was told they were going into reserves, and these people didn’t even know how to shoot. Then we found out that the next day they were sent to storm, and a few days later we learned that they were already listed as missing in action. Out of 20 people, 15 went missing, and only 5 somehow made it out,” says Vitalii, soldier of the brigade.

“When we arrived in the area of operations, there was a need to reinforce other brigades. The situation was such that, from a military standpoint, it made more sense to strengthen the actions of the units already on the front lines, as their commanders were more familiar with the combat zone,” reacts Yurii Maksymiv, commander of the 152nd Brigade. On November 4th, one of the brigade’s rifle battalions was assigned a separate section of the front on the Pokrovsk direction, stretching one and a half kilometers. The combat order came just 5 hours before they were to move into position. The battalion soldiers were tasked with occupying 4 positions. Prior to this, they had not fought as an independent unit but had been attached to a battalion of the 25th Airborne Brigade. Three days later, the Russians discovered their positions and attacked with drones and mortars. “We had many wounded, one group was buried in a bunker, and we weren’t able to retrieve them. We couldn’t evacuate the wounded either,” said one of the battalion officers.

Eventually, these positions were handed over to another unit, and the battalion command thought that would be the end of it. However, the same unit was assigned a neighboring sector. There were no officers available to lead a group into these positions. “We only had four platoon commanders left in the entire battalion. The company commanders were either wounded or only partially fit for service, and the platoon commanders were in the same situation—either partially fit or completely unfit,” explained one of the officers. The brigade’s Chief of Staff, Ihor Zakharov, ordered that the group be led to the positions by 59-year-old Major Serhii Lozovskyi, who was just a few months away from retirement.

Two active-duty officers from the brigade, speaking anonymously to Slidstvo.Info, revealed that Lozovskyi struggled with tasks involving computers. He had been demoted from the position of head of the brigade’s operations department to deputy commander of the rifle battalion. In early November, due to the lack of officers, Chief of Staff Zakharov ordered that Lozovskyi be the one to lead the group to the positions. “They led the group, and immediately upon landing, they encountered the enemy. Most didn’t return. Lozovskyi is now officially listed as missing,” said one officer from the rifle battalion. “He shouldn’t have been sent there. He had access to state secrets; as a staff officer, he wasn’t supposed to go. It was pure stupidity—he was ineffective as a combat unit, but as a staff officer, he did his job well,” the officer concluded.

Zakharov’s actions were not limited to a single mistake. Multiple witnesses reported that he used physical force on soldiers not only in the combat zone but also during training. According to Slidstvo.Info, citing sources within the SBI, a criminal case was initiated against Ihor Zakharov on September 4 of this year under Part 1 of Article 426, which pertains to “Exceeding authority or official powers by a military official.” Despite this, SBI investigators have yet to formally charge Zakharov.

“Why create new brigades when these people could be added to existing ones that are short on personnel but have a solid core that knows how to fight?” rhetorically ask several officers from the 152nd Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. “This is just so the leadership can have new ranks. Meanwhile, we’ve already lost one battalion to missing and killed soldiers, another is full of unfit personnel, and the brigade has essentially become combat-ineffective within three months,” concludes another senior officer, who is still with the brigade but is actively seeking ways to transfer out.