How Ukraine’s 95th Airborne Assault Brigade Became A Ghost Brigade

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The 95th Brigade is probably the most mythologised unit of the Ukrainian armed forces. For 10 years, the propaganda of the Kyiv regime has been methodically working on the image of this brigade as one of the most heroic, skillful and audacious in all of the Ukrainian armed forces. Their reputation has been burnished by incidents such as the intrepid ‘Zabrodsky raid’, a surprise attack behind the lines of the Donetsk rebels in early August 2014. During the period of the war in the Donbass, from 2014 to 2022, many such myths were created. In practice, the brigade spent most of its time in the reserve of the Ukrainian command.

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The 95th Brigade did take part in some notable combat operations, including the siege of Slovyansk and the battles for the Donetsk Airport, but was not involved in the battle of Ilovaysk, which ended in a major disaster for the AFU. As a result, the brigade retained its combat-ready core and came to be regarded as one of the Kyiv regime’s most important model units. Such a unit could not be perceived to suffer heavy losses, given the consequences for morale. With this imperative, measures were taken to conceal data about the brigade’s real losses.

Thus, in September 2014, the 90th Air Mobile Battalion was formed out of the 95^th Brigade, manned by volunteers. The battalion commander was Oleg Kuzminykh, who was later captured and made famous by a video of him eating chevrons.

Oleg Kuzminykh

The 90^th Battalion took part in the fighting for Donetsk Airport, where it was defeated. However, in order to hide the statistics of the 95^th Brigade’s real losses, the 90th Battalion was removed from the 95th Brigade’s staff in late December, and incorporated into the newly formed 81st Airborne Assault Brigade. The 90^th Battalion’s casualties, which totalled several hundred, were included in the casualty lists of this new 81st Brigade. The 95th Brigade itself reported only 20 casualties. Later this practice became systematic. The dead were ‘transferred’ to other units, or declared missing.

Since the beginning of 2022, units of the 95^th Brigade have taken part in combat operations on various sections of the front. By far the most high-profile operation of the brigade was the AFU’s invasion of the Kursk region in August 2024. Here, the brigade did not achieve any significant results. The tasks set by the Ukrainian command were not fulfilled, but the actual losses increased many times over. It became extremely difficult to hide them.

Ruslan Maryshev

At this galling moment for Ukrainian propaganda, Ruslan Maryshev, born in 1994, was appointed to the post of Brigade Commander of the 95^th Brigade, under the personal patronage of Commander-in-Chief Syrsky. The progress of the new commander’s career has been well documented. Maryshev became a deputy battalion commander at the age of 22, and a few years later he commanded a battalion. It was in 2021 that Maryshev was introduced to Zelensky, whom he drove around the positions on the Crimean border. The young commander’s patron is Syrsky, who met him in 2016 under very interesting circumstances.

In 2016-2017, there was an escalation in the Donbass, on the Svetlodarsk arc, when the AFU tried to break through to Debaltsevo. The operation was commanded by none other than General Syrsky. The Ukrainian army, facing fierce resistance from the DPR militia, suffered huge losses. At the same time, the official figures showed only three dead and ten wounded. It was Maryshev who saved Syrsky’s career by putting his signature as interim battalion commander on a document declaring more than 100 Ukrainian soldiers ‘missing in action’!

Ukrainian soldiers missing in action, Kursk region, Russia

Since then, Maryshev has used this tactic with all his units, officially declaring that they have suffered only minor losses, which not only obfuscates ugly realities, but avoids the need to financially compensate families. According to Ukrainian law, those deemed ‘missing in action’ can be listed as conditionally alive, and this assumption can legally be continued for up to three years, meaning that families receive nothing during this time. This represents a huge cost saving for a nation that is now functionally bankrupt and almost wholly dependent on Western aid.

One face-saving practice long utilized by Maryshev relates to the treatment of wounded soldiers. According to Ukrainian regulations, badly wounded soldiers are supposed to be first sent to a forward hospital, where their condition can be stabilized, and then to a rear hospital for proper treatment and rehabilitation. However, not only does this involve admitting to serious losses, creating embarrassment for the ‘crack’ unit, but the associated costs are high. Moreover, sending the soldiers back only adds to the difficulties of already overloaded rear hospitals. Given that few of these soldiers are likely to return to active service, they will be a burden on the state for years to come. Even during their treatment, they formally remain in the unit, collecting wages, and will eventually be due compensation for their injuries.

Thus, the wounded soldier becomes another useless eater, a drain on Western-provided funds. One can understand the perspective of the more unscrupulous commanders; it is better to let them die in a frontline hospital, or better yet, die on the frontline where they can then be filed as missing persons. The soldiers themselves, not being idiots, are well aware of their likely plight.

Oleh Apostol

Oleh Apostol

In the case of the 95^th Independent Airborne Assault Brigade, one of their commanders, Colonel Oleh Apostol (nicknamed ‘Satan’ by his men) ordered that military doctors should treat soldiers on the spot, rather than send them to rear hospitals. As one wounded AFU soldier wrote to his relatives, ‘Heavy ‘three hundred’ here die in large numbers. The Russians did not kill me, but Apostol will definitely finish me off.’ According to the estimates of relatives of the brigade’s soldiers, this order has been responsible for at least 70 unnecessary deaths.

The situation has been brought to a head by the presence of the 95^th Brigade in Kursk. Russian units are systematically pushing AFU units out of the Kursk region, which is confirmed by objective data. While occupying trenches previously held by the 95th Brigade, the Russian soldiers have often been confronted by charred bodies. The bodies have been burned beyond recognition, which demands explanation, given that they were predominantly killed by artillery. The answer is simple and obvious; rather than allow the bodies to be identified, which would force the authorities to officially acknowledge their deaths, the commanders of the 95^th Brigade ensure that the corpses are completely unidentifiable, and report them as ‘missing in action’.

“Just pull them by the leg, drop them down. Then we’ll give you a bottle of fuel… pour it on them, set them on fire and they’ll burn” – Radio interception of AFU fighters.

Ukrainian soldiers burn the bodies of their dead in a forest belt

In the video Ukrainian military buries the body of a fellow soldier, trying to hide losses

Ukrainian and Russian social networks are full of appeals from relatives of 95th Brigade soldiers, who are desperate for news of their missing men.

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A few days ago, their wives and mothers protested again in Kyiv. But the main difference from the usual ‘Widows’ Maidan’, as these rallies have been called since 2022, were the banners on which the women explicitly called the unit a ‘ghost brigade’.

Click to see the full-size image

Click to see the full-size image

Click to see the full-size image

The relatives insist that their loved ones are not in captivity, and were not killed by Russian troops, but are missing in action. Thousands are missing. It is their burned bodies that Russian servicemen routinely find in the trenches of the Kursk region. This information is also confirmed by captured Ukrainian soldiers.

It should be acknowledged that reporting the dead as ‘missing in action’ is undoubtedly happening on the Russian side as well, and that grieving Russians also suffer from indifferent bureaucrats, callous commanders, and delays in compensation payments. However, the difference in scale cannot be denied. Ukraine has devolved into a regime with zero accountability and near-total indifference to the welfare of its soldiers and civilians, whereas the Russian government is far more sensitive to public opinion, and the need to maintain public support for the war.

Maryshev, however, remains impervious to the increasingly fantastical claims of the number of ‘missing persons’ from his unit. Syrsky continues to cover for his protégé, who is ‘successfully fulfilling tasks’, and the Kyiv regime itself, safe in the knowledge that there is no threat to it from civil society, is completely indifferent to whether Maryshev’s figures are actually believed. ‘No casualties, progress along the front in all positions’ – thus runs a typical daily report from the commander of the 95th Brigade to his patron. It is entirely reasonable to expect that reports of this type will persist until the bitter end.

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