KYIV, Ukraine — Facing growing public pressure to address concerns over military leadership on the front as Ukrainian forces lose ground daily to Russian attacks, Ukraine said it had detained three former commanders that it blamed for the loss of territory last spring.

Ukraine’s security service said late Monday that the three former commanders — two generals and a colonel — had been accused of failing to protect the Kharkiv region in northeastern Ukraine from the advance of Russian forces last year.

The security service, known as the SBU, did not name those detained, giving only their ranks and the units they commanded at the time.

The former commanders are accused of failing to build adequate fortifications or to properly equip defensive positions, along with other mistakes that “led to the seizure of part of the territory of the eastern region of Ukraine, where fierce fighting is currently ongoing,” the security service said in a statement.

Public Pressure Is Growing For Action

The arrests come amid growing public pressure for action against commanders seen as incompetent or careless as desertions rise in the Ukrainian army. Soldiers who leave their units without permission often cite disagreement with their commanders as their main reason for doing so.

The colonel was also being held responsible for 12 soldiers in his battalion leaving their positions, a statement said. Separately, the commander of another brigade, the 155th, was arrested and charged with actions that led to large numbers of members of his brigade going absent without leave at a time when Ukraine’s military is badly lacking people.

Ukraine has also been targeting corruption in the military amid widespread accounts of bribetaking by military officials — particularly medical commissioners who can issue draft exemptions.

On Tuesday, the SBU announced that the country’s chief military psychiatrist had been arrested, saying that he had amassed more than $1 million since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion, acquiring several properties and four BMWs.

The crimes for which the commanders have been accused can carry prison sentences of up to 10 years. The SBU said it would seek to place those arrested in pretrial detention as a preventive measure.

Soldiers from the 125th brigade, which was involved in the defense of the Kharkiv region at the time, said that their former commander was one of those arrested, and reacted angrily.

“We were defending a huge swath of the border, we fought to the death in the first hours of the attack. We were short of people, ammunition and support but we fought, we fought under the leadership of our commander!” they wrote on the brigade’s Facebook page.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Maria Varenikova/Finbarr O’Reilly
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