Cannon Fodder Under a Foreign Flag: How the Kremlin Forms Pseudo‑Ukrainian “Battalions”

There are reports in the information space that the Kremlin is forming combat units from Ukrainian prisoners of war. The report mentions, in particular, the creation of the first so-called “Ukrainian Volunteer Assault Brigade.” Western analysts note that using POWs in combat units is a gross violation of international humanitarian law. And, as military expert Dmytro Sniehiorov explains, the Third Geneva Convention sets rules for the treatment of POWs and bans compelling them to participate in military activities for the state that captured them. After the report appeared, Ukrainian media began to actively republish the information, presenting it as current news about a new Russian practice. However, according to the expert, the story predates the ISW report by a significant margin. “As early as November of 2025, in a program on the YouTube channel ‘Radio Free Crimea,’ I, together with the military expert, Colonel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Vladyslav Selezniov, thoroughly analyzed how Russian special services created so-called ‘Ukrainian battalions.’ It covered not only the fact of their existence but also the formation mechanism, possible personnel, tasks of these units, and their role in Russian information and psychological operations,” recalls the interlocutor of FACTS. Four ‘Ukrainian battalions’ instead of one At that time the Russians had formed not one, but four so-called Ukrainian formations. It referred to the “Bogdan Khmelnitsky Battalion,” the “Maxim Krivonose Battalion,” the “Martin Pushkar Detachment,” and the “Alexander Matrosov Detachment.” The very name “battalion,” according to the intention of Russian special services, was meant to create the impression of a significant military force. Yet the actual strength of these formations, according to the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine, was incomparable to their name. The Ukrainian side at that time had information about 62 contracts of Ukrainian POWs with the occupant country’s Ministry of Defense regarding participation in the war against Ukraine as part of such formations. In other words, it was not thousands of Ukrainians that Russian propaganda could present as a massive collaboration, but a few dozen established individuals. These figures significantly differed from the image of “mass Ukrainian collaboration” that Russian propaganda sought to create. The “Bogdan Khmelnitsky Battalion” appeared as early as 2022. The first reports about the formation of such a unit appeared in September 2022. Russian propaganda resources then spread information about supposed desires of Ukrainian POWs, who are held in Olenivka, to join the so-called “Volunteer Cossack Battalion Bogdan Khmelnitsky.” This story arose two months after the explosion in the barracks with Ukrainian POWs in Olenivka. The Russian side tried to present POWs as people who allegedly willingly agreed to fight against Ukraine. In October 2023, Russian propaganda media reported that the “Bogdan Khmelnitsky Battalion” had supposedly joined the operational-tactical formation “Cascade.” Yet even then the question arose as to how full-fledged this military formation really was. According to Dmytro Sniehiorov, the Russian side themselves then stated that its participants had not yet taken an oath. So it was more of a paper formation and an information occasion than a full military unit. The Defense Intelligence of Ukraine also did not confirm combat deployment of the “Bogdan Khmelnitsky Battalion.” In November 2024, the representative of the GUR Andriy Yusov stated that for a long time this story largely remained an information-psychological operation and there were no confirmations of deployment of the unit at the front. Why the occupiers need “Ukrainian” units The main goal of such formations is not to create real military strength, but to shape the Kremlin’s informational picture. The enemy tries to push to the international audience the thesis of an alleged internal Ukrainian conflict: Ukrainians supposedly fight Ukrainians, and a part of Ukrainian society, allegedly, is ready with weapons in hand to support Russia. This narrative targets several audiences. First, Ukrainian service members and their families. They are being persuaded of the supposed widespread support for the enemy among Ukrainians. Second, the international audience. Here the aim is to create a picture that would allow the Kremlin to present the Russian-Ukrainian war not as aggression against Ukraine, but as an internal confrontation. Third, it concerns informational influence on residents of temporarily occupied territories. The enemy mirrors Ukrainian formations The expert drew attention to another peculiarity of Russian propaganda—an attempt to mirror Ukraine’s decisions. Russian volunteers fight within the Ukrainian Defense Forces. Notable formations include the Russian Volunteer Corps, the Freedom of Russia Legion, and the Siberian Battalion. But there is an important difference. Russian citizens in Ukrainian formations are actually taking part in fighting against the occupier. Regarding the created enemy’s “Ukrainian battalions,” there was no confirmation for a long time of their full-scale combat use. Thus the Kremlin is trying to create a mirrored image: if Ukraine uses Russian volunteers, then the Kremlin, within the occupier’s army, supposedly has the same “Ukrainian” formations. But the origin of people in these units is fundamentally different. Some Ukrainians ended up in Russian captivity, while another category consists of collaborators and former Ukrainian security forces who intentionally switched sides. How POWs could be coerced into collaboration Separate analytical block examined how Russian special services may recruit Ukrainian POWs into such formations. This concerns a system of pressure that includes physical and psychological violence, substandard conditions of detention, hunger, beatings, and threats. In such conditions a prisoner’s consent to collaborate does not necessarily reflect a voluntary choice. “That is why I emphasized the need to separate two categories of people: those who consciously switch to the enemy and POWs who could be forced to collaborate through torture, threats, or other forms of coercion,” explains Sniehiorov. Currently, Ukrainian side has established over 300 locations of detention of Ukrainian POWs on the territory of the occupier country, Belarus, and the occupied territories. This is not a new Kremlin tactic At the same time, using Ukrainians for sabotage and military activity on the enemy’s side is not a new practice. The appearance of today’s “Ukrainian battalions” has a much older history of Russian special services’ work in the occupied territories. According to the analytical department of NGO “Prava Sprava,” since 2014 year Russian special services created training centers where local residents were prepared for intelligence and sabotage work. In particular, training included snipers, bomb- and mine-expertise specialists, and members of reconnaissance and sabotage groups. Some of these people were used by Russian special services to carry out sabotage on territories under Ukrainian control. 2016 year, local women were also recruited into such programs. The total number of cadets established then exceeded 120 people. Later a similar training center operated near Pervomaysk on the basis of the “Chaika” camp. The difference in the current campaign is that Russian special services actively demonstrate such formations in their own information space. “Ukrainian battalions” and the Pokrovsk direction The most dangerous scenario, which I spoke about back in 2025, was the use of these formations directly at the front. In November 2025, I reported transferring so-called “detachments of Alexander Matrosov” and “Martin Pushkar” to the Pokrovsk direction, argues Dmytro Sniehiorov. According to the analytical department of NGO “Prava Sprava,” this could have been part of a broader information operation. The logic of this scenario is simple: if foreign journalists are shown on the front lines with people in Russian army uniforms who are presented as Ukrainians, the Kremlin obtains a ready-made picture to promote the thesis of “Ukrainians fighting Ukrainians.” That is why questions about such units go beyond their real military strength. Their main value for the enemy may lie not in the number of fighters but in the ability to use the information in a propaganda storyline. Why ISW’s message is not new The current ISW publication raises the issue of the use of Ukrainian POWs in Russian formations. But the fact of creating such units by Russian security services did not originate in August 2026. “The ‘Ukrainian battalions’ were reported by Russian propaganda as early as 2022–2023. Ukrainian intelligence and the ‘Prava Sprava’ analytical department publicly commented on this history. And in November 2025, I already analyzed in detail not only the existence of such formations but also four specific units, their makeup, possible tasks, and the information scenario of their use,” notes the FACTS interlocutor. Therefore today’s story should be viewed not as a report that the enemy suddenly began creating Ukrainian units, but as another stage of a long-known practice. And here a separate question arises for so-called “analytical structures” and media: how fully do they track previous Ukrainian studies on this topic? This is not the first time when the analytical department of NGO “Prava Sprava” was the first to publicly document certain processes, and after some time, similar conclusions appear in “analytical structures” reports without clear links to prior Ukrainian sources. In the case of the “Ukrainian battalions,” this is especially telling: the current ISW report essentially returns to the media agenda a topic that Ukrainians had already analyzed in detail. But along with propaganda, the occupiers, as before, commit war crimes by killing Ukrainian POWs.