Commander of the 125th Separate Heavy Mechanized Brigade (SHMB) Major Volodymyr Fokin ("Foka") has spoken about the key stages of reforming the brigade, where an audit revealed under-staffing of personnel and equipment, lack of combat management experience, a depressing moral and psychological state of the fighters, and other facts.
An Interfax-Ukraine correspondent reports that Fokin made the statement at a press conference in Kharkiv, reporting on the results of a seven-month reform in the 125th brigade, which became part of the 3rd Army Corps. In particular, during the first two months, it was possible to return 53% of servicemen who went AWOL.
"When I took over the brigade, what did I see? The brigade’s strength was at 18% of personnel, including officers, soldiers, and sergeants. A complete lack of ordinary vehicles. A complete lack of armored vehicles. It should be noted that the brigade was reorganized in the summer of 2025 from the 125th Territorial Defense Brigade into a heavy mechanized brigade, but apart from changes on paper, nothing else changed in this unit," Foka said.
He emphasized that the brigade was performing tasks in the Kupiansk direction, but was actually "torn apart": some units were in the Zaporizhia direction, some were in the Sumy area, and accordingly, only a part of the logistics support units were in the Kupiansk area.
"Also, the main problem was that not once over the then four years of the full-scale invasion did the brigade management directly command its units. Accordingly, the brigade had never fought in full strength with its combat and support units. Consequently, the brigade management experience was absent," the major explained.
According to him, during the two-to-three-week audit, after speaking with soldiers, officers, and sergeants, an extremely low level of the moral and psychological state of the fighters was discovered.
"The morale was simply at zero. Servicemen, especially sergeants and soldiers, were despairing. Despairing in their strength, in their capabilities, in their unit. They were simply in a state of stagnation. I remember the words of a general who possessed information regarding the brigade. Back then, he said that this unit should simply be disbanded. This gave an additional push to me and the team to show the Armed Forces of Ukraine that even from such a unit, one can make truly the best heavy mechanized brigade in the Armed Forces of Ukraine," Fokin said.
In addition, the 125th brigade suffered from a "complete lack of responsibility among the officers for the decisions and orders they issued," the major noted. According to him, "an order was given one-way, tasks were set haphazardly, and they tried to cover up everything with papers, just brush-offs."
"In three weeks, we understood the real state of affairs. After that, over the course of six months, a decision was made by me to replace about 90% of key command positions; accordingly, 90% of commanders were removed from their posts and new servicemen, new people were appointed," Foka said.
He noted that the first tank battalion, an unmanned systems battalion, a ground robotic complexes battalion, and electronic warfare units were formed from scratch, while several infantry battalions were fully restructured, command was changed, and training was conducted.
"Accordingly, personnel numbers in our unit increased by 234% over seven months," the commander said.
Fokin assured that now the 125th Separate Heavy Mechanized Brigade "has a direction of movement" – to become the best heavy mechanized brigade in the entire Armed Forces of Ukraine.
"In the first two months, we managed to return 53% of AWOL cases. And we managed to build recruitment from absolute scratch, as well as a media department, which currently makes it possible to receive replenishment for our unit, around 45-50% of the total number of personnel coming to the brigade," he reported.
According to the commander, a good example of the brigade’s "renewal" was the repelling of a large mechanized offensive by Russia in March 2026.
"We had time to prepare for these actions by the enemy. And the most important thing we received in our corps is the ease of interaction and speed of reaction accordingly in all directions and lines," he said.
