Ukraine’s Ground Forces Expand with New Army Corps Formation

10 October, 2024 Kozak-2 armored vehicles at exercises of the Marine Corps. January 2021. Photo credits: Armed Forces of Ukraine

The formation of the fourth army corps continues in the Ukrainian Ground Forces. Ukrainian Military Pages learned about this from its own sources in the Ukrainian Ground Forces. According to the publication, "the Armed Forces of Ukraine continue to move to a corps-based command structure."

The Ground Forces already have three army corps--the 9th, 10th, and 11th (formerly the Reserve Corps), and the fourth is currently being formed. The Air Assault Forces (Rapid Response Corps) and the Marines of the Ukrainian Navy have one more corps each.

The 10th Army Corps. Photo from the corps' Facebook page

Each of the army corps consists of 4-5 mechanized (assault, infantry) brigades, a reconnaissance regiment or battalion, and other detached combat and logistics units.

The corps is commanded by a Major General, assisted by a Chief of Staff and a Deputy Chief of Staff, who are both Brigadier Generals. In total, each corps has three generals in command. Army corps emerged with the advent of mass armies, when the scope of combat operations increased and the management of military formations with numerous combatants and various weapons became more complicated.

The creation of the army corps was also due to the need to have formations capable of solving combat tasks in an independent operational area.

A BMP-2 armored vehicle and Ukrainian soldiers during a training exercise. December 2022. Ukraine.

Photo credits: 30th Brigade

As of 1992, there were 6 army corps in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The last of them, the 8th Army Corps, was disbanded in 2015. However, the Reserve Corps remained.

In 2022-2023, after the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the 10th Army Corps was formed in Ukraine.