What is Colonel Emil Ishkulov famous for? He is 37 years old. A graduate of the Institute of Ground Forces of the Ukrainian Army, in the war since 2014. Ishkulov began his service as a commander of a reconnaissance platoon in the 25th separate brigade of the Air Assault Forces. His unit was sent to Amvrosiivka, a small town in the Donetsk region, which is on the road to the border with Russia.
In early June 2014, he was captured near the village of Marynivka. On the task of battalion commander Yevhen Moysyuk, he scouted the whereabouts of the enemy column. In enemy territory, he was in civilian clothes, without a weapon, and on the way back he was detained by a Russian unit. At the beginning of the war, unit commanders independently exchanged prisoners — and within a few days, Moysyuk returned Ishkulov.
Already at the end of July 2014, Ishkulov participated in the raid of the 25th brigade from Debaltseve to Shakhtarsk. His party of scouts went ahead of the main force and detected ambushes.
Ishkulov met a full-scale Russian invasion in Avdiivka. In the spring, he was appointed commander of the 5th battalion-tactical group of the 81st brigade, with which he fought in the Zaporizhzhia direction. At the end of 2022, he took command of the 80th brigade of the Air Assault Forces. Under his command, the brigade defended the main road to Bakhmut, and later advanced on the southern flank of the Bakhmut direction and recaptured Klishchiivka. After the start of the Russian counteroffensive, the brigade held the settlement — Klishchiivka is still under the control of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, although the Russians managed to advance in neighboring directions along the front line.
Why was Emil Ishkulov removed from the position of brigade commander of the 80th brigade of the Air Assault Forces? According to Babel sources, the brigade was under renewal for some time. But they were not allowed to fully recover. The brigade received an order to advance in a certain direction, Ishkulov was given a task that he called unrealistic: there was a lack of time, forces and people. The command did not like this, and he was removed from his post.
Since Ishkulovʼs subordinates came to his defense, later the command of the Air Assault Forces spread the word that Ishkulov was not being fired, but was being transferred to a higher position in the Command of the Air Assault Forces.
Who will replace Emil Ishkulov as commander of the 80th brigade? The Air Assault Froces reported that the next commander will be a competent combat officer, a full knight of the Order of Bohdan Khmelnytskyi. According to Babelʼs source, this is Pavlo Rozlach, a brigade commander of the 82nd Air Assault Brigade.
Pavlo Rozlach is 36 years old. He is a military officer, studied at the Chernihiv Military Lyceum, then at the Odesa Institute of Ground Forces. In 2009, he graduated from the Lviv Institute of Ground Forces of the National University "Lviv Polytechnic" with a major in "Combat application and control of the actions of airmobile units". After university, he served in the 95th brigade. As part of it, he began fighting in 2014 — first near Slovyansk, then near the village of Pisky, near the Donetsk airport. In 2015, he became the youngest combatant in Ukraine — at that time he was only 27 years old.
In 2019, he retired to the reserve, became a private entrepreneur and built an aqua farm in Zhytomyr Region, breeding catfish and trout. But in two years he returned to the army and since then served as the commander of one of the battalion-tactical groups of the 80th separate brigade of the Air Assault Forces. At the beginning of 2023, the 82nd Assault Brigade was created on the basis of this battalion-tactical group, and Rozlach became its commander. The brigade participated in the battles for Robotyne. Rozlach was removed from the post of Brigadier General of the 82nd Brigade, in fact, for the same thing that Ishkulov did now, and was appointed to a staff position in the Command of the Air Assault Forces. From there he came to the post of brigadier general of the 80th brigade.