UKRAINE AUDITING FRONTLINE BRIGADES AS MILITARY PUSHES FOR QUALITY OVER QUANTITY
Ukraine has begun a comprehensive audit of its military brigades, with the results expected to determine whether some of the Armed Forces’ weakest-performing units should be disbanded or reorganized, according to Taras Chmut, head of the Come Back Alive Foundation.
Speaking about the initiative, Chmut said the proposal was to conduct a systematic review of all brigades with the goal of identifying the poorest-performing formations.
“We proposed to conduct an audit of brigades with the aim of disbanding 30% of the worst brigades.”
To ensure the assessment was based on measurable performance rather than opinion, a digital evaluation system was developed using around 160 criteria. These include battlefield losses, territory lost and recaptured, combat effectiveness, casualty figures, logistical performance, drone capabilities, and numerous other operational indicators.
The findings have reportedly exposed significant disparities between units.
According to Chmut, inspectors found brigades with critically inadequate capabilities, including some where an entire brigade had only two UAV crews—a severe limitation in a war where drones have become indispensable for reconnaissance, artillery correction, and strike missions.
“Twenty percent of the bottom can be disbanded for sure,” Chmut added.
The audit reflects a broader shift in Ukraine’s military thinking. After years of rapid expansion to meet the demands of full-scale war, the focus is increasingly moving from building more brigades to building better brigades.
Rather than allowing underperforming formations to continue operating with chronic shortages or ineffective leadership, Kyiv appears to be considering consolidating personnel and equipment into stronger, more capable units.
This is especially significant as Ukrainian forces continue to face numerically superior Russian formations in sectors such as Pokrovsk. Against an adversary that can often deploy substantially more troops, Ukraine’s advantage must come from better leadership, superior technology, effective logistics, and higher combat efficiency—not simply the number of brigades on paper.
If implemented, the reforms could become one of the most significant organizational changes within Ukraine’s Armed Forces since the full-scale invasion began, emphasizing that in modern warfare, combat effectiveness matters far more than the number of unit patches on a map.