“Publicity on blood”: 47th brigade reacts to resignation notice of its sergeant major

The 47th Separate Mechanised Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Magura reacted to the statements of Sergeant Major Valerii Markus, who asked to be demoted because of the ongoing disagreement with the brigade’s commanders.

Source: Oleksandr Sak, commander of the 47th Separate Mechanised Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, on Telegram; Rustam Mustafaiev, Sergeant Major of the 47th Brigade’s UAV strike company, on Facebook

Quote from Sak: “Today, soldiers, sergeants and officers of the brigade continue to perform combat tasks – seven days a week, 24 hours a day.

In these difficult days, I, the commander of the 47th Brigade, call on everyone to put aside conflicts, resentment, disputes – and increase efforts for joint struggle. Let the problems unite us before fierce battles! As the fingers bend into a single fist to strike, so we must unite.”

Details: Rustam Mustafaiev, Sergeant Major of the 47th Brigade’s UAV strike company, criticised Markus for the fact that he “tries to gain publicity on blood and other people’s work”, and also refuted a number of his critical statements about the command of the brigade.

In particular, Mustafaiev assured that he and his sergeants did not face the “systematic humiliation of the sergeant corps of the brigade”, which Marcus had claimed. According to Mustafaiev, the command, on the contrary, often calls him to the headquarters to interact and coordinate the actions of the unit, and all officers of the higher command are in direct contact with him to “create the most favourable conditions for the work of the unit”.

He also called Markus’s statement about “the brigade command’s lack of understanding of the importance of the morale of soldiers for the quality performance of tasks” “completely delusional”.

Quote: “What kind of morale can we talk about when Marcus takes part in an assault once, films the result of someone else’s work and then posts a bunch of videos to promote himself with the blood of his brothers. Although it was he who was supposed to be engaged in the combat training of the brigade and raise the combat morale, he completely failed at this stage.”

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More details: Also, Mustafaiev refutes Markus’ accusations about the “incompetence of the higher officer corps of the brigade”, stressing that he personally participated with these officers “in more operations than there are Markus’ posts in his blogs”.

Mustafaiev also considers the statement about “the brigade command’s lack of will to protect the interests of the military unit before the higher command” to be untrue.

He concluded that the 47th Separate Mechanised Brigade successfully fulfils its tasks, despite a number of problematic issues.

Background: 

• On 11 July, Valerii Markus, Sergeant Major of the 47th Separate Mechanised Brigade Magura of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, said he had asked to be demoted because he disagreed with the actions of the brigade’s command.

• On 28 June, Valerii Markus spoke about a day of assaults and a night spent with the bodies of Russian invaders, only for Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi to leave a comment reprimanding him for taking off his body armour.

• On the same day, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with Marcus to discuss the reform of the sergeant corps.

• The 47th Separate Mechanised Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Magura is involved in operations in Zaporizhzhia Oblast.

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