Irina Nesterova12:36, 13.11.25

Relatives of the soldiers are trying to find out the truth from the command.

Relatives of soldiers from the 125th Separate Heavy Mechanized Brigade, which held positions in the Zaporizhzhia sector in September , are complaining of dozens of missing soldiers. They are demanding an explanation from the command as to why the wounded were not evacuated and the unit was not withdrawn from its positions, according to a report by hromadske .

Among those missing is Anastasia Shapovalova’s fiancé, Orest. They were supposed to be married on September 25th—Orest was supposed to leave the front on leave, but he stopped communicating five days beforehand. A few days later, according to Shapovalova, an official notification was received that Orest was considered missing in action.

“On September 19, the enemy outflanked their positions and came from behind. That day, six drone positions were destroyed. My Orest, who was manning a mortar, was pelted with grenades. The next day, the ‘meat grinder’ and chaotic retreat from the positions began,” Anastasia recounted, citing the words of her surviving comrades, who claimed it was impossible to get the truth from the command.

However, at the end of October, the brigade command confirmed the losses, but stated that their soldiers were subordinate to other units.Read also:

“The units that carried out combat missions in the Zaporizhzhia sector, near the settlements of Poltavka and Olgovske, were under the operational control of another military formation and acted under the orders of the relevant command. The command of the 125th Separate Heavy Mechanized Brigade was not involved in the planning or management of combat operations in this sector of the front and, accordingly, had no authority to comment on or change decisions made,” the brigade’s statement reads.

The 125th Separate Naval Brigade “distributed” its battalions

The publication recalled that the 125th separate Troops Brigade became the 125th separate heavy mechanized brigade in July of this year, and its reform entailed a change in the staffing structure and a reduction in the number of battalions that were generally subordinate to other brigades.

“From the very beginning [since 2022, – ed.], we were all ‘distributed.’ This is perhaps one of the few brigades that distributed its battalions. That is, we were always assigned to some other brigade,” said one of the 125th Naval Brigade servicemen, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The article states that some of the battalions have been assigned 15 operational commands to different brigades over the course of three and a half years, and therefore, relatives now do not understand which brigade is responsible for planning and command in a specific section of the front.

“No one has yet answered us as to which command Dad was under that day: either 102 or 110. Everything is so confused, such a mess, there are no concrete answers…” shared Ivanna Rybak, whose father went missing on September 14 near Poltavka.

What did the brigade command tell the relatives?

After a flurry of requests from relatives, the 125th Brigade command finally held an online meeting with about a hundred families of missing soldiers, the publication reports. They were told they had no authority to influence orders. Command representatives stated that due to undermanning and losses, they had requested the withdrawal of battalions in nearly every combat report, but their proposals were ignored.

“At the meeting, the 218th Battalion commander [where the man served, – ed.] claimed there were retreat positions. But after speaking with the soldiers who survived, I know there were no retreat positions. It was chaos… I know that those who were wounded in their positions were not allowed to evacuate. There were clear orders from people who said not to take the 300th soldiers. They were bleeding profusely. Due to the lack of drones, the guys continued on—and were simply shot,” says Anastasia Shapovalova.

According to her, 41 people from the battalion where her fiancé Orest served were killed or missing in action in that area, and almost 100 from the brigade in total.

What was happening on the front lines?

Ostap Pyulik, commander of the 2nd mechanized battalion of the 125th separate naval brigade and who held his positions there until the very end, agreed to shed light on what happened in September near Poltavka and Olgovskoye in the Zaporizhzhia direction.

It is noted that three battalions of the 125th Naval Brigade were stationed there since mid-September: the former 217th, 218th, and 219th. The latter was disbanded and merged with the 217th, so, in essence, there were two of them.

“After the last reconnaissance, we were left critically understaffed—and on September 10th, the brigade arrived in Zaporizhzhia. We had already taken over the defensive line on September 16th. Everything happened in a short timeframe… We were under the command of the 102nd Brigade. At that point, assault operations were already underway,” Pyulik said.

According to him, the positions were well-equipped, and enemy assaults were successfully repelled until the neighboring 1st Rifle Battalion (formerly the 218th), having suffered losses, began to retreat.

“On September 20, a neighboring battalion retreated from its positions under enemy pressure, exposing our flank to a depth of 6 kilometers. We were forced to regroup to avoid the operational encirclement of our own units,” the battalion commander explained.

Since no one was assigned to replace the retreating battalion, they had to regroup and held out for almost another month. The battalion commander has no complaints about the 102nd Brigade, which commanded the fighters, saying they helped as much as they could—with supplies, artillery cover, and UAV crews:

“We provided reports to our senior commander about the risks of operational encirclement, the difficulty of evacuating the wounded and dead, and the exhaustion of our personnel. But we couldn’t refuse or reject the order, because it was an order from the highest headquarters.”

Unit losses

He recalled that in the first 10 days, the unit lost 10 pickup trucks and one Hammer, and access to its positions was impossible due to remote mining of all access roads. Furthermore, the enemy eventually gained air power, sustaining numerous artillery and aerial attacks, and by October 16, Poltavka was already occupied.

The battalion commander also commented on reports from relatives that not all of the wounded had been evacuated.

“I couldn’t evacuate large groups. Each group had to consist of three to four people. Any larger group would be immediately visible to the enemy. We had already been forced to evacuate our wounded 8-12 kilometers, walking the route. Leaving our positions could take anywhere from a day to two and a half days. Therefore, the order was to prioritize evacuation based on the severity of the wounds,” Pyulik said.

According to the commander, his battalion alone suffered 49 casualties (out of 350) between September 16 and October 16. Only three deaths have been confirmed, while the remaining 46 are considered missing.

(c)UNIAN 2025