Russia's 155th Naval Infantry Brigade Has Been Wiped Out, Rebuilt At Least 8 Times

The Kremlin continues to replace the brigade's 2,000 marines with new drafts of 2,000 marines, only to replace them again. And again. 

Not that anyone feels sorry for the 155th: it is notorious for committing war crimes such as torturing and killing Ukrainian civilians, murdering surrendering Ukrainian soldiers and the like, which, aside from dying themselves, has become their trademark. JL

David Axe reports in Trench Art:

The Russian navy’s 155th Naval Infantry Brigade has the highest turnover of any regiment or brigade in Russia’s war on Ukraine. The 2,000-person brigade has been destroyed and rebuilt at least eight times since February 2022. Aside from its name and some equipment, there’s nothing left of the unit that rolled into Ukraine nearly three years ago. The 155th suffered the most during its long campaign targeting Vuhledar. By then the it had fought everywhere in Donetsk Oblast before joining the abortive Russian offensive in Kharkiv Oblast over the summer. It got worse for the brigade two months later as Ukrainian forces attacked in Kursk. The Kremlin has replaced every person in the brigade multiple times.

The Russian navy’s 155th Naval Infantry Brigade might have the highest turnover of any regiment or brigade in Russia’s 34-month wider war on Ukraine. The 2,000-person brigade has been destroyed and rebuilt many times since the Russians escalated their invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The churn continues. “Sometimes I think that 155th Brigade is endless,” mused Kriegsforscher, a Ukrainian marine corps drone operator, after his unit destroyed a tank, four armored trucks and seven armored personnel carriers during a combined assault on Dec. 22 by the 155th and the adjacent 810th Naval Infantry Brigade on the 250-square-mile salient that Ukrainian forces carved out of Kursk Oblast in western Russia in August.

 

It’s not endless. Instead, the 155th Naval Infantry Brigade is the military equivalent of the Ship of Theseus. The Kremlin has replaced essentially every person in the brigade more than once. Aside from its name and some equipment, there’s probably nothing left of the unit that rolled into Ukraine nearly three years ago.

There isn’t one 155th Naval Infantry Brigade. There are a dozen or more. As long ago as May 2023, the Institute for the Study of War in Washington, D.C. concluded the Kremlin had already rebuilt the unit eight times.

 

The 155th suffered the most during its long campaign targeting the fortress town of Vuhledar in southern Donetsk Oblast in the spring of 2023. That town finally fell this fall after its exhausted Ukrainian garrison ran low on able-bodied infantry.

By then the 155th was on a long, costly journey north, fighting elsewhere in Donetsk Oblast before joining the abortive Russian offensive in Ukraine’s Kharkiv Oblast over the summer. It got worse for the brigade two months later as a strong Ukrainian force attacked in Kursk.

For three months, the Russians have been trying to eliminate the Kursk salient—at any cost. The 155th has been relentlessly attacking along the same fields and roads along the western edge of the salient near the hamlet of Zelenyi Shylakh.

The Ukrainians know the brigade is coming. They meet every attack with mines, drones, missiles and artillery, bleeding the 155th until it’s all but gone—and has to be rebuilt yet again.