Assault regiment commander ordered troops to fire on retreating comrades, media investigation alleges

Editor's note: This is a developing story.

Oleh Shyriaiev, commander of Ukraine's 225th Assault Regiment, allegedly ordered troops to open fire on retreating fellow soldiers, according to an investigation by the Ukrainian investigative outlet Texty.

Ukrainian journalist Anna Kaliuzhna's investigation, published on July 30 in both text and video form, includes a voice message allegedly from Shyriaiev that was sent to one of the unit's chats while the regiment was fighting in Russia's Kursk Oblast from late 2024 to early 2025.

"A reminder to those referring to 'our own' — there are no 'our own,'" the voice, allegedly belonging to Shyriaiev, says.

"There is only a specific request over the radio: ‘permission to move.' Everything else is the enemy. Anything that’s moving is the enemy. Anyone fleeing their positions is a deserter — and they’re the enemy too. Stick to this rule."

The voice note, sent to Kaliuzhna by multiple sources within the unit, is one example of the alleged use of "blocking forces," in which soldiers who retreat without orders are shot or systematically threatened with being shot, though the vast majority of such cases occur in the Russian army.

Over the course of Russia's war against Ukraine, the practice, sometimes called "nullifying," first became notorious through its use by Russia's Wagner mercenary group during the battles for Bakhmut in Donetsk Oblast and has since become widespread across much of the Russian army.

In addition to the voice message from Shyriaiev, the investigation includes accounts from several soldiers — some named and some speaking anonymously — who had served in the regiment. They described soldiers being threatened before assaults with being shot if they turned back.

Soldiers quoted in the story, many of whom came from the regiment's Shkval prisoner battalion, also described systemic beatings, and the holding of soldiers against their will in makeshift basement prisons, in testimonies that resemble those in a similar investigation into the 425th Assault Regiment, better known as Skelia.

Asked by the Kyiv Independent to comment on the specific allegations in this story, the 225th Regiment declined.

The 225th Assault Regiment — which fought as a battalion in Chasiv Yar before helping lead the lightning incursion into Kursk Oblast in 2024 — is one of the largest units of the Ukrainian military, having been expanded to at least 15 battalions.

In autumn 2025, after also conducting cross-border raids into Russia's Belgorod Oblast, the unit was moved to the southern front line, where Russian forces were making rapid gains around the city of Huliaipole in Zaporizhzhia Oblast.

The Ukrainian defenses in this area, held by undermanned and often unmotivated Territorial Defense brigades, were in a state of relative chaos when then-Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi sent in the 225th to stabilize the situation.

Although reports emerged that an entire Territorial Defense brigade had retreated chaotically and that soldiers from the 225th had kidnapped Territorial Defense service members who had apparently been transferred to the regiment without their knowledge, the defense of the area around Huliaipole was successfully stabilized over the winter.

In a preemptive Facebook post the day before Kaliuzhna's investigation was published, the regiment denied allegations that it had used blocking forces while fighting in Zaporizhzhia Oblast.

The post acknowledged an incident involving a beating in the Shkval battalion, adding that an internal investigation was underway.

In the investigation itself, Shyriaiev is cited as claiming that his voice message from Kursk Oblast was referring to the practice of Russian soldiers of dressing in Ukrainian uniform to infiltrate through the front line, which is why any movement not warned of in advance would be treated as made by the enemy.

Shyriaiev served in the Ukrainian nationalist formation East Corps at the onset of Russia's war in 2014. From 2018 to 2019, he was also a close associate of pro-Russian politician Illia Kyva, who fled to Russia a month before the full-scale invasion and was later assassinated in Moscow in 2023.

The Texty investigation is the latest in a series of revelations about conditions inside some of Ukraine's assault regiments, which were expanded into some of the country's largest units on Syrskyi's orders throughout 2025.

On July 29, the General Staff under new Commander-in-Chief Mykhailo Drapatyi announced an audit into the staffing of combat units and the distribution of manpower between them, an effort likely intended to reverse the disproportionate prioritization of units such as the 425th and 225th regiments.