Dealing with mounting public stress to deal with issues concerning the frontline navy management as Ukrainian forces lose floor each day to Russian assaults, Ukraine stated it has detained three former commanders it blames for shedding territory final spring.
Ukraine’s safety service stated late Monday that the three former commanders – two generals and a colonel – have been accused of failing to guard the Kharkiv area in northeastern Ukraine from advance of Russian forces final yr.
The safety service, generally known as the SBU, didn’t title the detainees, solely their ranks and the models they commanded on the time.
The previous commanders are accused of failing to construct sufficient fortifications or correctly equip defensive positions, together with different errors that “led to the seize of a part of the territory of the japanese area of Ukraine, the place fierce combating is at present happening,” the safety service it said in a statement.
The arrests come amid mounting public stress for motion in opposition to commanders seen as incompetent or careless, as desertions rise in Ukraine’s navy. Troopers who go away their models with out permission usually cite disagreement with their commanders as the principle cause for doing so.
The colonel was additionally held liable for 12 troopers from his battalion abandoning their positions, it said in a statement. Individually, the commander of one other brigade, the one hundred and fifty fifth, was arrested and charged with actions that led to the absence of huge numbers of members of his brigade with out go away at a time when Ukraine’s military is severely undermanned.
Ukraine has additionally focused corruption within the navy amid widespread allegations of bribery by navy officers – significantly medical commissioners who can challenge draft exemptions.
On Tuesday, the SBU introduced that the nation’s chief navy psychiatrist had been arrested, saying he had amassed greater than $1 million because the begin of the full-scale invasion of Russia, buying a number of properties and 4 BMWs.
The crimes the commanders are charged with carry sentences of as much as 10 years in jail. The SBU acknowledged that they may search a measure of remand for the detainees.
Troopers from the a hundred and twenty fifth Brigade, which on the time was concerned within the protection of the Kharkiv area, stated their former commander was a type of arrested and reacted angrily.
“We have been defending an enormous part of the border, combating to the dying within the first hours of the assault. We lacked males, ammunition and assist, however we fought, we fought underneath the management of our commander!” they wrote to the brigade Facebook page.
Cassandra Vinograd and Natalia Novosolova contributed reporting.
