Chaos on front lines: Story of Ukraine's 125th Brigade and dozens gone missing on Zaporizhzhia front
A white wedding dress hangs in Anastasia's home. She and Orest planned to get married on September 25 — he was supposed to get a break from the front for leave. But five days before that, he stopped responding to messages. A few days later, she received an official notification that Orest was considered missing in action.
"On September 19, the enemy bypassed their positions and came up from behind. That day, six drone positions were destroyed. My Orest, who was on the mortar, was attacked with grenades. The next day, the 'meat grinder' started, and there was a chaotic withdrawal from the positions."
Anastasia Shapovalova is attempting to reconstruct the events on the battlefield, minute by minute, based on the accounts of brothers-in-arms who survived. Because, she says, she cannot get the truth from the brigade command.
This concerns the Zaporizhzhia axis, near Poltavka and Olhivske (now occupied, according to DeepState data). Since mid-September, relatives of soldiers from the 125th Separate Heavy Mechanized Brigade have been writing about dozens missing in action, demanding explanations.
Only at the end of October did the brigade command confirm the losses. However, they stated that their soldiers were subordinate to other units.
hromadske explores why the brigade is "torn apart", what really happened and is happening on that axis, and how large the losses are, and whether they could have been prevented.
"The brigade that distributed its battalions"
This concerns the 125th Separate Territorial Defense Brigade, which was redesignated as the 125th Separate Heavy Mechanized Brigade in July of this year. Its reform led to changes in the staffing structure and the reduction of battalions, which were generally subordinate to other brigades.
"From the very beginning [since 2022 — ed.], we were all 'distributed.' This is possibly one of the few brigades that distributed its battalions. That is, we were always attached to some other brigade," hromadske was told by one serviceman from the 125th Separate Heavy Mechanized Brigade on condition of anonymity.
Some battalions underwent 15 operational subordinations to different brigades over a period of three and a half years. For relatives, this has resulted in confusion about which brigade is ultimately responsible for planning and management in a specific section of the front.
"No one has answered us yet under whose command Dad was that day: whether under the 102nd [Territorial Defense Brigade — ed.] or the 110th [Territorial Defense Brigade — ed.]. Everything is so tangled, such a mess, there are no specific answers..." says Ivanna Rybak, whose father went missing on September 14 near Poltavka.
As it turned out, three battalions of the 125th were thrown in as reinforcements to other brigades on that axis.
"They claim there were fallback positions. There were none"
"Why was there no evacuation? Why was permission to retreat not given? The brigade's press center says all the information will be included in the official investigation and so on. So where should we look for the answer? We knew many of Dad's brothers-in-arms, but now there is no one to ask — they all went missing in action on different dates," Ivanna adds.
After a barrage of inquiries from relatives, the 125th Brigade command held an online meeting with about a hundred families. They explained that they had no right to influence orders. According to representatives of the command, due to understaffing and losses, they requested the withdrawal of battalions in almost every combat report. However, they claim that their proposals were ignored.
"At the meeting, the commander of the 218th Battalion [where her husband served — ed.] claimed that there were fallback positions. However, after speaking with the soldiers who survived, I know that there were no fallback positions at all. It was chaos," Anastasia Shapovalova complains.
I know that those who were wounded on the positions were refused evacuation. There are clear instructions from people who said not to pick up the WIAs. They were bleeding out. Due to the lack of drones, the guys went — and they were simply shot. Positions were being leveled with the ground.Anastasia Shapovalova, whose fiancé went missing on the Zaporizhzhia axis
According to Anastasia, from the battalion where her husband served, there are 41 dead or missing in action in that sector. There are about a hundred overall from that brigade.
The fighters she mentioned refused to speak. To shed light on "one of the most hellish moments for the brigade in these years," one of the battalion commanders who held positions there until the last agreed.
"Tried to avoid the environment"
Since mid-September, three battalions of the 125th Separate Heavy Mechanized Brigade were on the Zaporizhzhia axis: the former 217th, 218th, and 219th. The last one was disbanded and merged with the 217th — so essentially, there were two.
"After the last replenishment, we were left with critically low staffing — and on September 10, an order came to go to Zaporizhzhia.
Starting September 16, we took up our defensive line. Everything happened on a tight timeline—getting to know the combat unit commanders right in the thick of carrying out the missions. We were under the subordination of the 102nd Brigade. At that moment, assault actions were already underway," recounts Ostap Piulyk, commander of the 2nd Mechanized Battalion of the 125th Separate Heavy Mechanized Brigade.
To their left stood the 1st Rifle Battalion (former 218th), which was under the subordination of another, the 110th Brigade. According to Piulyk, the positions were well fortified. They successfully repelled the enemy's assaults at first. Until the neighboring battalion, having suffered losses, began to withdraw.
On September 20, the neighboring battalion retreated from the occupied positions under enemy pressure, exposing our flank to a depth of 6 kilometers. We had to regroup to avoid operational encirclement of our own units.Ostap Piulyk, commander of the 2nd Mechanized Battalion of the 125th Separate Heavy Mechanized Brigade
No one was sent to replace the battalion that retreated. They had to regroup and held out that way for almost another month. The battalion commander does not complain about the 102nd Brigade. He says: there they helped as much as they could — with supplies, artillery cover, UAV crews.
We provided reports to the senior command regarding the risks of operational encirclement, the difficulty of evacuating the wounded and dead, the exhaustion of personnel. But we could not refuse to accept the order or disobey it, because it was an order from the higher headquarters.Ostap Piulyk, commander of the 2nd Mechanized Battalion of the 125th Separate Heavy Mechanized Brigade
"In the first 10 days, we lost 10 pickups and one Humvee. That is, reaching the positions became impossible due to remote mining of all access roads. Over time, the enemy began to dominate the air; there were many artillery and air strikes from the enemy. Overall, during the month we were there, there were 69 assaults," Piulyk notes. Poltavka was already occupied by October 16.
The battalion commander also reacted to the relatives' messages that not all the wounded were evacuated. He says that such an order did indeed exist.
"I could not carry out evacuation in large groups. It had to be from three to four people. If the group is larger — it is immediately noticeable to the enemy. We were already forced to evacuate our wounded over 8–12 kilometers, passing the route on foot. The exit from the positions could take from a day to two and a half days. Therefore, there was an order for evacuation in priority according to the severity of the injury."
"1% chance that he is in captivity"
According to the commander, the number of losses in his battalion alone from September 16 to October 16 is 49 people (out of 350). Only three deaths are confirmed; the remaining 46 are considered missing in action.
The situation on the Zaporizhzhia axis remains difficult. Relatives of fighters from the 102nd Brigade are now demanding that the troops be withdrawn from critical positions.
Ostap Piulyk's unit was withdrawn to the Kharkiv axis. The battalion commander says that he personally communicates with the relatives of the dead and missing in action.
The command of the 125th Separate Heavy Mechanized Brigade informs relatives that an official investigation is being conducted for each serviceman, and all facts and circumstances will be documented in the investigation materials.
The 102nd and 110th Brigades, under whose subordination the units of the 125th were, do not comment on the situation.
hromadske's request to the higher command regarding the circumstances, the number of losses, and the justification of the tactics of using so-called attached brigade units had no response at the time of publication.
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Anastasia, together with relatives of other soldiers missing in action, has united in a group and demands answers to whether there was official negligence on the part of the brigade command.
And the last hope is that her Orest is in captivity.
"Orest went to cover the group; the group got out — he did not return. No one actually saw his body. So I have a 1 percent chance that he is in captivity."