Over five weeks of fierce ground battle in August and September, the Azov Corps—the first of 18 such corps formed as part of an armed forces-wide overhaul—and regular Ukrainian army units turned back the Russian advance and recaptured six villages and significant territory. “Ukraine’s armed forces rely on Azov and its offshoots as an emergency force when things get really bad,” Ukraine expert Andreas Umland said. “They have the reputation as being the best, the most well trained and well equipped.”
This summer, Ukraine’s high command gambled by redeploying the recently created 1st Azov Corps, a special forces unit comprising five brigades including the elite Azov Brigade, to the vicinity of the embattled city of Pokrovsk, just north of occupied Donetsk. There, Russian troops, grinding forward, had managed to partially break through Ukrainian defenses, advancing to a handful of miles short of the strategic Dobropillia-Kramatorsk highway.
This summer, Ukraine’s high command gambled by redeploying the recently created 1st Azov Corps, a special forces unit comprising five brigades including the elite Azov Brigade, to the vicinity of the
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