Going through rising public strain to handle considerations over army management on the entrance as Ukrainian forces lose floor day by day to Russian assaults, Ukraine mentioned it had detained three former commanders that it blamed for the lack of territory final spring.
Ukraine’s safety service mentioned late Monday that the three former commanders — two generals and a colonel — had been accused of failing to guard the Kharkiv area in northeastern Ukraine from the advance of Russian forces final 12 months.
The safety service, often called the S.B.U., didn’t title these detained, giving solely their ranks and the items they commanded on the time.
The previous commanders are accused of failing to construct ample fortifications or to correctly equip defensive positions, together with different errors that “led to the seizure of a part of the territory of the jap area of Ukraine, the place fierce preventing is at present ongoing,” the safety service said in a statement.
The arrests come amid rising public strain for motion towards commanders seen as incompetent or careless as desertions rise within the Ukrainian Military. Troopers who depart their items with out permission usually cite disagreement with their commanders as their most important purpose for doing so.
The colonel was additionally being held chargeable for 12 troopers in his battalion leaving their positions, a statement said. Individually, the commander of one other brigade, the one hundred and fifty fifth, was arrested and charged with actions that led to giant numbers of members of his brigade going absent with out depart on the time when Ukraine’s army is badly missing folks.
Ukraine has additionally been concentrating on corruption within the army amid widespread accounts of bribetaking by army officers — notably medical commissioners who can situation draft exemptions.
On Tuesday, the S.B.U. introduced that the nation’s chief army psychiatrist had been arrested, saying that he had amassed greater than $1 million because the starting of Russia’s full-scale invasion, buying a number of properties and 4 BMWs.
The crimes for which the commanders have been accused can carry jail sentences of as much as 10 years. The S.B.U. mentioned it could search to position these arrested in pretrial detention as a safety measure.
Troopers from the one hundred and twenty fifth brigade, which was concerned within the protection of the Kharkiv area on the time, mentioned that their former commander was a kind of arrested, and reacted angrily.
“We have been defending an enormous swath of the border, we fought to the loss of life within the first hours of the assault. We have been in need of folks, ammunition and assist however we fought, we fought beneath the management of our commander!” they wrote on the brigade’s Facebook page.
Nataliia Novosolova contributed reporting.
