It is with almost certainty that the 64th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade has been destroyed and disbanded after the Brigade colors was captured and 300-400 members were killed during the advance from Izyum towards Slovyansk. Last month the official numbers of killed and wounded of the Brigade were around 80% while the Ukrainian General Staff claimed today that evidence in portions of captured Izyum indicate the brigade has been disbanded or at least destroyed.
The announcement claimed that due to killed, wounded, discharged, and the refusal of members to fight, the bulk of the fighting force was disbanded and several officers and trainers were transferred to the FSB Border Security force to man patrol stations.
This announcement by the Ukrainians seems to corroborate earlier reporting from the ISW and Radio Free Europe.
The Brigade took heavy losses during the initial push to Kyiv and has been assigned much of the blame concerning the rape of civilians around Bucha. Despite being awarded Guards Status by President Putin after the withdrawal from Kyiv, some believe the unit was sent to the Slovyansk front to participate in the meat grinder in order to kill as many members of the brigade in order to hide the war crimes in Bucha.
Yury Fedorov, a Russian military expert, estimated the total personnel of the 64th Brigade, which includes two motorized rifle battalions and one tank battalion, was about 2,500 before the war.
“The 64th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade is from the Far Eastern Military District, and there many units were severely weakened and poorly equipped,” he told Radio Free Europe which has kept an extensive log of the Brigade’s activities.
