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February 4, 2025

Ukrainian Army Transitions from Brigade to Corps System

The long-awaited reformation of the Ukrainian Army and the establishment of additional corps is now underway.

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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Mentioned Units |

3rd Assault Brigade

Ground Forces

Azov Brigade

National Guard

92nd Assault Brigade

Ground Forces

7th Rapid Response Corps

Air Assault Forces

9th Army Corps

Ground Forces

10th Army Corps

Ground Forces

11th Army Corps

Ground Forces

30th Marine Corps

Naval Forces

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Coerenza

Hi, the decision is excellent, it should restore cohesion to the Ukrainian army.

Operational question
Currently the brigades have their own units scattered throughout the front. So before establishing the new coordination structures, will the brigades be reunited?

UNSC_Marines_52

I’ve been mostly a proponent of introducing Division echelon to solve tactical problems, and the way this was phrased worries me. AFU needs to offload responsibility from Brigades onto Divisions, not increase it. Divisional echelon is needed for better force economy with support elements, and i’m worried Army Corps level might be too bulky and loose to properly materialize advantages of a division

InfantryGamer42

This model of battalion-brigade-corps organisation worked really nice in late Cold War Yugoslav (People) Army and armies of succesor states during 90s war in exYu. And from what I know, both Ukraine and Russia did took interest in those 80s organisation reforms which Yugoslavia implemented.

Lev Vuksin

Ukrainian Corps are more like Russian Corps which in turn are more comparable to an American Division. They are based of the us army’s division system for army 2030. It appears each Corps will have 5-7 maneuver brigades an artillery brigade a UAV regiment and a Reconnaissance battalion or regiment supported by organic sustain ment units

Lev Vuksin

Hence all the new drone regiments Enough for all 16 to 20 corps to have a drone regiment and 25,000-30,000 troops per corps sounds about right for how many troops they have.

Absolute

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.

zev0202

you can say all you want about the azov movement, but theyre the ones that have been defending ukraine since day 1. when youre fighting for survival you recruit anyone you can. the establishment of new brigades is the issue, when your actually motivated and battle hardened units arent getting much equipment

Franko Kozzo

they deserted as soon as hit the Battlefield

Miles_Ignigena

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?

Last edited 2 days ago by Miles_Ignigena
Andrew

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.

zev0202

This is great. They’re correcting mistakes and proactively working to make the management and structuring better

Paraus

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.

zev0202

There are only 3 assault brigades in AFU. 3rd, 5th and 92nd.

jacob

Would be better if they split Air assault corps and give each corps one air assault brigade

Paraus

yes, same with the Jaeger and Mountain brigades. I can see why the Marine brigades would be kept together since they need operate in a specific littoral environment, but there is no reason for an Airborne Corps apart from a training cadre.

This has changed to 4 now, considering 59th Motorised Brigade has just become an Assault Brigade recently too.

zev0202

There’s also the Lyut assault brigade

Paraus

currently, yes, there are only four. Yet, we keep seeing battalions become new regiments, regiments become brigades. They are rewarding success by adding assets and sub-units to units commanded by successful, talented leaders.

InfantryGamer42

The closest example of such type of organisation can be found in late Cold War Yugoslav People Army which during 80s transition from regiment-division-army organisation to battalion-brigade-corps organisation, ditching in process regiments and divisions with few exceptions. Example is also more interesting, because I do know that both Ukrainians and Russians took some inspirations from that model.

InfantryGamer42

From example, 12. Corps of YPA in 1990 had: 18.Motorized Brigade, 36.Mechanized Brigade, 51.Mechanized Brigade, 453.Mechanized Brigade, 506.Infantry Brigade, Zrenjanin, 16.Mixed Artillery Regiment, Mixed Anti-Tank Regiment, 12.Light Air Defense Artillery Regiment, Recce Co, 497.Engineer Regiment, NBC Defense Co, Signal Bn, 12. MP Bn, Medical Bn, Transp Bn, 2x Border Bn and 793. Logistics Base

Jake

158th, 159th, 160th, and 162nd Mechanized Brigades had been halted

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

Tristan

Good decision. Let’s hope it will solve one big structural problem of the Ukrainian army.

jacob

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.

Miles_Ignigena

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.

Last edited 2 days ago by Miles_Ignigena
Miles_Ignigena

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.

Last edited 2 days ago by Miles_Ignigena
PanuHuuhta

Because many believe so, that’s why now is the best time to use big air landing to Crimea or Kaliningrad

Miles_Ignigena

Did you overlook the last sentence about “all the Air-Defence”? Not even Fighter-jets cross the front line, they tilt up and volley their unguided rockets and turn back, basically doing indirect fire with air-to-ground rockets. An whole armada of slow flying transport helicopters and planes would suffer devastating losses.

Miles_Ignigena

Kaliningrad? Ukraine need to fly over foreign territory and who would allow that? Crimea, let’s assume that the initial landing is successful, how do you want to supply that force? Once the russians know what’s goiing on and have recovered from the first shock, all Air-Defence assets would be at high-alert and cut off any meaningful supply air drops. Sorry but that idea is preposterous.

Last edited 1 day ago by Miles_Ignigena
John Pork

Isn’t there also the 161 Mechanized brigade being formed?