Ukrainian Army Transitions from Brigade to Corps System
Today, Commander-in-Chief General Sirskyi reported to Ukrainian President Zelenskyy that the plan to reorganize the Armed Forces of Ukraine, including the creation of new corps, has been approved and is being actively implemented. These corps will be structured around experienced brigades and their commanders, granting them increased responsibility and autonomy.
The Armed Forces of Ukraine currently have six corps: the 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th Army Corps, along with the 7th Rapid Response Corps of the Air Assault Forces and the 30th Marine Corps of the Navy.
Yuriy Butusov, the editor-in-chief of Ukrainian Censor.net, shared new details about the ongoing transformation of the Armed Forces of Ukraine during his regular Butusov Live show on YouTube. According to Butusov, the command intends to establish up to 20 Army Corps to scale up the top brigades and build new forces around them. Each corps will be assigned a specific area of responsibility and will oversee at least five brigades.
All existing corps will be restructured into combat corps, no longer serving solely as administrative units in the rear. The Operational Strategic Groups (OSUV), Operational Tactical Groups (OTU), and Tactical Groups (TG) will be disbanded, with the corps eventually assuming control of the frontlines.
The 30th Marine Corps will undergo a complete reform, as it currently functions primarily as an administrative body, with marine units scattered across the entire frontline. Additionally, the marines will receive extra staffing, as some units have yet to recover since the Krynky Operation. The 7th Rapid Reaction Corps of the Air Assault Forces will be split into two corps, as the current structure is too large.
New Corps formations
According to Yuriy Butusov, the 3rd Assault Brigade will be restructured into the 3rd Army Corps. The new formation will be led by none other than Andriy Biletsky, the founder of the brigade and the Azov movement.
The 92nd Assault Brigade will be upgraded to corps, likely the 92nd Army Corps.
The National Guard of Ukraine will also adopt a corps structure. The first corps will be formed around the 12th Special Purpose Brigade Azov and will be led by Denis Prokopenko. The second corps is planned to be based on the 13th Operational Assignment Brigade Khartia, with the current commander, Ihor Obolyenskyi, at the helm.
Yuriy Butusov did not disclose his sources, so all the information shared above should be treated as unconfirmed. While the majority of what Butusov has reported in the past has proven to be accurate, some details have turned out to be false. For instance, he recently claimed that the formation of the 158th, 159th, 160th, and 162nd Mechanized Brigades had been halted, yet official sources confirm that they are still being formed. As a result, the reports above will not be included in our database for now, and we will await further confirmation from additional sources.
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So in a nutshell, the politically motivated Azov brigades will be transformed into corps, multiplying by 5 their troops to be able to act independently. This will mean they will probably continue to receive the best of the western material. This is also probably why the new brigade are dismantled, as their new material is send to those type of “elite” units.
That sounds like a good development. The questions i have are: will those Commanders get some kind of Staffeducation? Foch said that it will take 15000 casualties to train a Major-General. Don’t think that Ukraine can spare so many.
Will the Battalions of the Brigade become new brigades themselfs, and will they move off the front for that and how will that effect thier performance?
Will be interesting to see how the new regiments fit in. Wonder if brigades will become fully administrative, each supplying several regiments to the corps.
This is great. They’re correcting mistakes and proactively working to make the management and structuring better
Essentially this new structure falls in between the traditional division and corps echelons. Will each corps have it’s own artillery brigades and engineering units? I assume that is why there are so many new announcements of battalions becoming regiments and regiments becoming brigades. I would assume each corps will have An Assault brigade, 4 maneuver brigades, artillery and a drone brigade.
There are only 3 assault brigades in AFU. 3rd, 5th and 92nd.
Would be better if they split Air assault corps and give each corps one air assault brigade
This has changed to 4 now, considering 59th Motorised Brigade has just become an Assault Brigade recently too.
There’s also the Lyut assault brigade
All he said is that new brigades will not get mobilized personnel. 159th brigade is already formed and will undergo a training in Europe (Germany I believe). All other new brigades are not disbaned (as some wrongly reported in twitter) – those remain in reserves, they will not be filled with mobilized personnel – it’s what he said
Good decision. Let’s hope it will solve one big structural problem of the Ukrainian army.
Why create two separate air assault corps? It would be more effective to deploy air assault brigades as they are now—supporting regular units across the front where a highly capable backbone is needed—rather than concentrating multiple brigades in one area unless a major offensive is planned.
There is some truth to that, but those are not really “AirAssaut” any more. They just deploy like any other Mechanized/Assault Infantry. No shaming them, is just that big airborne assauts are out of the question, givin all the Air-Defence.
Perhaps they want them as a reserve strike force. They can’t be that if they hold frontline positions like now. Having them all in one Corps makes it far to big for one commander to handle. So two corps are an better option.
Isn’t there also the 161 Mechanized brigade being formed?
Yes, but it wasn’t mentioned by Butusov.