Brave and indomitable: 128th Zakarpattian Mountain Assault Brigade marks 100th anniversary

Espreso.West will tell the story of the origin of the famous "Zakarpattia's Legion", which began its history after the First World War.

The history of the creation of the brigade

The brigade was created after the reformation of the 128th Mechanized Division, which had its history from the 128th Guards Motorized Rifle Division of the former Soviet Army. The 128th Guards Mountain Rifle Turkestan Division is a military unit of the Red Army that existed from 1922 to 1956. The official date of its foundation is July 12, 1922. The division received the status of Guards during the Second World War. At that time, it was liberating Crimea, Zakarpattia and Czechoslovakia from the Nazis.

In 1956, the division was reformed into the 128th Guards Motorized Rifle Division. Since then, the 128th Detached Mountain Assault Brigade has come a long way from an ordinary post-Soviet mechanized division to one of the most powerful units in the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

In 1991, the commander of the 128th Guards Motorized Rifle Division, General Viktor Grechaninov, became the first commander to announce support for Ukrainian statehood. On January 19, 1992, the personnel of the 128th Division took an oath of loyalty to the people of Ukraine.

The brigade is part of the Armed Forces

The history of the 128th Mountain Assault Brigade can be conventionally divided into two stages - before the war with the Russian occupying forces and during it.

At the first stage of the history of independent Ukraine (1991-2014), the brigade took the brunt of a natural disaster when "big water" came to Zakarpattia. During several floods in the 90s and early 2000s, the personnel of the compound were repeatedly involved in the elimination of the consequences of natural disasters. At that time, the brigade provided all-round assistance to save the native land: providing residents of Zakarpattia with hot food and evacuation, clearing debris, setting up pontoon crossings, and repairing roads.

In 2000, by presidential decree, the brigade received the honorary name "Zakarpattia", which remains with it to this day.

Currently, the 128th Detached Mountain Assault Brigade of Zakarpattia is a unit of mountain infantry of the Ground Forces of Ukraine. The brigade is part of the operational command "West".

Heroic and multinational

Fighters of Zakarpattia's Brigade participated in peacekeeping missions in Iraq, Lebanon, Sierra Leone, as well as the territory of the former Yugoslavia. However, the brigade gained real combat experience in 2014, on its native land. Then, in the first months of the anti-terrorist operation, the first battalion-tactical group went east, which received its baptism of fire on the approaches and directly in the battles for the Luhansk airport. They lost their first comrade there, when on June 14, 2014, soldier Roland Popovych, a grenade launcher of the 15th Detached Mountain Infantry Battalion, was killed at the "STALINGRAD" checkpoint near the village of Makarovo. 

Several units of the 128th brigade were involved in the execution of tasks at the "Debaltseve bridgehead", which later became a place of true heroism for the soldiers. In superhuman conditions, often outnumbered, the servicemen resolutely repulsed the Russians.

"Artillerymen, going against the recommendations and rules that can be found in artillery textbooks, developed their own methods of waging war. This was a forced norm, because they often had to get into situations that were not mentioned in the textbooks," the brigade fighters say.

The uniqueness of the brigade is added by its "highlight" - multinationality and multiculturalism. With the first waves of mobilization, the ranks of combat units began to be filled by residents of the region, among whom there were many ethnic Hungarians, Romanians, and Slovaks. And Zakarpattia's dialect seemed like a foreign language to some. 

"Often from the first days of the war, such a diversity of languages ​​gave rise to rumors about foreign mercenaries fighting for Ukraine. In some places, local residents whispered among themselves that these were most likely French legionnaires. The "legionnaires" turned out to be ordinary residents of Zakarpattia, who gave their lives for Ukraine without hesitation, even though they were of other nationalities," the soldiers say.

Since February 24, servicemen of the 128th brigade have been defending the country in various points of the combat zone. During this time, five soldiers were awarded the highest state award - the title of Hero of Ukraine and the "Golden Star" Order. Two of them were awarded posthumously.