In 2024 and early 2025, specialists began to be transferred en masse from the Air Force of the Ukrainian Armed Forces to the Ground Forces to replenish the combat brigades.
The Air Force of the Ukrainian Armed Forces complained about the transfer of highly skilled infantry specialists to fill combat brigades. According to Ukrainskaya Pravda, the latest order from Commander-in-Chief Alexander Syrsky on the transfer of personnel was received by the military units of the Air Force on January 11. According to this order, according to the UP interlocutor, more than 5 thousand military personnel must be transferred to the Ground Forces.
Lack of people
Vitaly Gorzhevsky, a staff sergeant of the 114th tactical aviation brigade, subject to transfer to the Ground Forces according to the order of January 11, 2025, told UP that he has been serving in the 114th brigade since 2014. He is engaged in the restoration of military equipment and maintaining it in combat readiness, in particular the MiG-29 and MiG-29A aircraft, provided to Ukraine by partners from in Slovakia and Poland.
“Since 2014, we were sent to Sukhoiputka at our own request, and from 2022 – voluntarily and en masse they began to take us in 2024 and 2025. Last year, 250 people were taken from our unit an order came for 200+ I understand that we need to defend our state, but aviation is also necessary, it is not something that should be constantly maintained in combat readiness. To become an aviation specialist requires more than a year of training and practice, but they told me that I had to go and crash landings.
“We started bringing people to the Land in the spring of 2024. But now it has reached a critical level – the strength of our units has dropped to almost 50%. the commander-in-chief, the strength of our units will be reduced to 40%. “It is a collective weapon, even if we take a driver or a guard, the effectiveness of the unit will decrease,” UP quoted a senior officer of one of the Armed Forces units as saying.
The senior technician of the engineering and aviation service of the Carpathian aviation squadron, Dmitry Dontsov, in a comment to the Galka publication, said that the decision to transfer aircraft technicians to the infantry is the destruction of aviation, emphasizing that no less of eight people are required to service an aircraft.
“They are firing both management and staff. There are regulated documents that indicate how many people should work on the aircraft. And if we make a mistake on the ground, it’s the pilot’s life. And to train a pilot, it takes years, along with several years of training, combat experience,” he noted.
A video message from the aviation technical personnel of the 114th Air Force Brigade also circulated on the Internet, asking for publicity because of the order to transfer the technicians to the infantry. They emphasized that without technical personnel, aviation cannot survive.
Consequences of displacement
Mass transfers of personnel could critically undermine the combat effectiveness of the Ukrainian Air Force, especially its ability to effectively conduct missions.
In December, The Guardian, citing military air defense officials, reported that shortages on the Ukrainian front had become so acute that the General Staff had ordered “depleted air defense units” to be released. the more men to be sent to the front as infantry. One of the sources noted that it poses a risk to the security of Ukraine and “has reached a critical level where there is no confidence that the air defense can work properly.”
The publication also states that some of the fighters were trained in the West and received real skills, but they were sent to the front as infantrymen without appropriate training.
Reaction
The General Staff responded to the scandal that it was not planned and did not plan to transfer the severe shortage of specialists from the aviation engineering service of the Air Force that maintains aircraft to infantry units.
According to the General Staff, the Air Force of the Ukrainian Armed Forces “on the contrary, is increasing the number of technical and flight personnel.”
The report states that certain categories of Air Force personnel, after initial training in training centers, are strengthening the Ground Forces, Air Assault Forces, and others.
“The situation at the front is difficult in many areas without enough infantrymen. The decision to strengthen the ground brigades on the front line at the expense of military personnel from units of other branches and branches of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is a forced step by the military leadership to strengthen our defense,” said the General Staff.
Acting Air Force Commander Lieutenant General Anatoly Krivonozhko said the Air Force is gradually transferring some personnel to ground units to strengthen front line brigades. However, this will not apply to specialists in the few specialties required to perform combat aviation missions.
Krivonozhko also emphasized that the Air Force is actively working to strengthen units of anti-aircraft missile forces, improve mobile fire groups and increase the efficiency of aviation use, and these changes will continue.
In the end, this story reached President Vladimir Zelensky: “A separate conversation was with the commander of the Air Force Now there is a lot of different information, anger and discussions in the translations that I ordered to clarify everyone in society and don’t reduce the number of specialists the Air Force needs to carry out combat missions – our aviation, air defense and mobile fire groups.”
Source: korrespondent
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.