The battalion commander of the 46th Separate Aviation Brigade, Anatoly Kozel “Kupola”, was demoted after criticizing the Armed Forces of Ukraine in an interview with The Washington Post. The Ukrainian military complained that they did not have time to train the recruits who were sent to fight in Bakhmut, and many of them ran away in fear at the sound of gunshots.

As Meduza reports, this is stated in the sources of “Ukrainian Pravda” and the editor-in-chief of the Ukrainian Bureau of The Washington Post, Izabel Khurshudyan. Later, the information was confirmed by the spokesman of the Air Force Valentyn Shevchenko.

On March 13, The Washington Post published an article about the state of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the eve of the Ukrainian counteroffensive, which is expected this spring.

Journalists spoke with several Ukrainian servicemen, including a battalion commander whose unit, according to The Washington Post, fought in the Donetsk region and withdrew from Soledar in the winter after the Ukrainian army was encircled by Russian forces.

The commander noted that he witnessed how hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers left their positions during the attack by Wagner’s group of mercenaries.

The commander noted that against the backdrop of losses in the ranks of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, there were many poorly trained recruits.

100 died, 400 were wounded

During the year of the war, he said, about 100 of his battalion’s 500 soldiers were killed and the rest wounded, leaving the unit filled with inexperienced recruits.

“I get 100 new fighters and I don’t even take the time to train them. I say to myself: “Take them into battle.” [Și în luptă] recruits drop everything and run. That’s all. Do you understand why? Because a soldier does not shoot. I ask him: “Why?”. And he answers me: “I’m afraid of the sound of shots.” And, I don’t know why, he never threw a grenade,” Kupol told WP, ​​noting, among other things, the lack of ammunition on the front line.

The Ukrainian military officer explained his decision to speak with the hope that the United States would provide better training for the Ukrainian military before a counterattack.

“There is always hope for a miracle. Either it will be a bloody meat grinder and corpses, or it will be a professional counterattack. There are two options. In any case, it will be a counteroffensive,” Kupol said.

The article caused a stir in Ukraine

The Ukrainian information and analytical site Strana reported that the Washington Post article “made a lot of noise in Ukraine”, in particular, the Secretary of the National Security Council Oleksiy Danilov commented on it, noting that the journalists’ information is not true. correspond to reality.

“Yes, it’s a difficult situation. For a year we have been waging war against a great country, but not wisely. We knew it would be difficult. But now it’s not very pleasant to undermine the situation by presenting information that does not correspond to reality,” he said on Ukrainian television.

Valentyn Shevchenko, the spokesman of the Airborne Assault Forces of Ukraine, also stated that Kupol spread “unreliable information” in the interview, after which the military conducted a check.

According to Shevchenko, the commander communicated with journalists without the management’s permission, which is prohibited by the statute.

“Warlords don’t like the truth”

“The losses reported by the military during the battle in his unit are significantly overstated. At the same time, such information has the status of restricted access,” Shevchenko added.

The dome will be attached to one of the training centers of the Airborne Assault Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Shevchenko said. In response to the command’s decision, the soldier resigned.

Kupol told Hromadskyi that the commander of the Air Force, Major General Maksym Myrhorodsky, explained his demotion by saying that if he confirms his opinion about the poor training of the military, then he must train them himself.

“Ukrainian Pravda” notes that this is not the first case of transfer to the 46th brigade after servicemen’s communication with journalists.

Earlier, paratrooper sergeant Oleksandr Pogrebyskyi was transferred to the position of senior company instructor at the training center after an interview about the situation in Soledar in January 2023.

“The military commanders do not like the truth and do not want to solve systemic problems,” the interlocutors of the publication noted.

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