Former commander of the 155th brigade Ryumshin sent to custody. He is suspected of mass AWOL cases in the unit

The former commander of the 155th separate mechanized brigade, Dmytro Ryumshin, was taken into custody for two months — until March 19.

This was confirmed to Babel by his lawyer Bohdan Zabara.

The court will allow Ryumshin to be released on bail of 90 million hryvnias. The lawyer will appeal the courtʼs decision.

The former commander is suspected of not responding to violations in his unit and not informing law enforcement officers about the facts when his fighters left the military unit without permission. According to the investigation, in 2024 he did not submit a single message to the pre-trial investigation bodies, ignoring reports and oral statements. In addition, Ryumshin sent unmotivated fighters to training in France, including those mobilized from border regions or those who had previously tried to illegally cross the border. As a result, 56 servicemen left the training grounds without permission. The insufficient number of personnel reduced the combat capability of the unit, undermined its authority and created new threats to national security. The brigade commander faces up to ten years in prison.

What preceded

Journalist Yuriy Butusov stated on December 31 that allegedly 1,700 soldiers from the 155th separate mechanized brigade named after Anna Kyivska voluntarily left service before “the brigade fired the first shot.”

According to Butusov, from the very beginning it turned out that the OK "West", which was creating the 155th brigade, had "neither command personnel, nor soldiers, nor weapons, nor resources" for this.

The 155th brigade began to be formed in March 2024. Butusov listed the number of personnel by the time they went to the front for each month and the number of fighters who went to the North-Eastern Front that month (in brackets):

• March 46 (3);
• April 123 (6);
• May 217 (31);
• June 1978 (185);
• July 3,882 (310);
• August 2,748 (217);
• September 3,253 (187);
• October 3,211 (339);
• November 5,832 (448).

Butusov also notes that in October, when the brigade went to France for training, another 50 soldiers deserted from the service. According to him, 1,924 servicemen were sent to France, of whom only 51 had more than a year of military service experience, and 459 had less than a year. And the majority — 1,414 — were soldiers who had just been enlisted, having fought for two months by that time. Butusov said that the State Bureau of Investigation had opened a criminal case because of the incident in France.

In a comment to Ukrainska Pravda, SBI communications advisor Tetyana Sapyan said that the SBI is indeed investigating these facts and has opened criminal proceedings for desertion and abuse of power or authority by a military official.

At the same time, the Commander of the Land Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Major General Mykhailo Drapatiy, stated that he had not observed any mass cases of soldiers of the 155th OMBR leaving combat positions.

"Instead, I observe a certain substitution of concepts, when the number of AWOL cases is equated with cases of desertion," he emphasized.

A special hotline of the commander of the Land Forces operates for servicemen of the 155th brigade. Drapatiy says that he wants to understand how much the decisions of the command affect the motivation of the fighters and the real state of affairs.