Around 1,700 Ukrainian troops equipped by the West have disappeared after being trained in Fance, leaving the remainder of their brigade to face Putin’s wrath alone.
The 155th Mechanised Brigade, one of Ukraine’s few units equipped with advanced Leopard 2 battle tanks, was supposed to bolster the country’s defences.
Instead, at least 50 soldiers disappeared while the unit trained in France, and by the time it entered its first battle, 1,700 troops had gone absent without leave.
Even as late as November, 500 soldiers remained unaccounted for, sparking a crisis for the brigade, also known as Anne of Kyiv in honour of its historical ties with France.
This mass exodus occurred before the unit was deployed to Pokrovsk, a critical logistics hub in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region.
When the depleted brigade finally entered combat in recent days, it suffered heavy losses, including some of its prized Leopard tanks and other armoured vehicles.
The debacle has prompted an investigation by Ukraine’s State Bureau of Investigations into what critics are calling the ‘shambolic’ formation of the unit.
The brigade was intended to feature over 5,800 troops and state-of-the-art Western weaponry, including French Caesar 155mm howitzers.
It was the centrepiece of a high-profile £747 billion project jointly announced by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and French President Emmanuel Macron last year.
Instead, the brigade’s collapse has exposed glaring flaws in Ukraine’s strategy to build new military units from scratch, with analysts questioning why resources weren’t used to bolster battle-hardened brigades already engaged on the front lines.
