In December 2025, the Ukrainian state project "I Want to Find" published a list of 1,098 deceased servicemen from the 25th Separate Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade – Military Unit 29760. This is not an estimate based on cemetery size, nor is it a formula of "approximately a thousand." It referred to a named array linked to a specific unit from Luga, Leningrad Oblast.

By this point, the brigade itself formally no longer existed. It had been reorganized into the 68th Guards Motorized Rifle Division, retaining the Military Unit 29760 number and its historical name. The organization grew by one level precisely when families continued to search for the missing, demand the evacuation of bodies, and seek death certificates.

The brigade commander, Aleksey Ksenofontov, with the call sign "Tiger," received the title of Hero of Russia. Simultaneously, relatives and fellow servicemen accused him of issuing deadly orders, sending unprepared groups into assaults, and "zeroing out" (extrajudicial killings). "Verstka" included the Colonel in a separate database of commanders whom subordinates link to extrajudicial killings. There is no public verdict on these accusations.

The history of Military Unit 29760 therefore consists of two incompatible chronicles. In the official one, there is a distinguished brigade, a hero-brigade commander, and a new division. In the open source one, there is a failure near Kharkiv, years of assaults near Kupyansk, missing people, and three years of repeated appeals from families.

What is Military Unit 29760

The 25th Separate Guards Motorized Rifle Sevastopol Red Banner Brigade named after the Latvian Riflemen was part of the 6th Combined Arms Army. Its permanent deployment point was Luga, Leningrad Oblast. The full name combined Soviet history, Guards status, Sevastopol, and the memory of the Latvian Riflemen.

The modern brigade was formed in 1992 on the basis of the 13th Guards Training Motorized Rifle Regiment. After its withdrawal from Latvia, its predecessor underwent reduction to a storage base and was then re-established. The unit's pre-war biography itself shows that its number and name experienced changes in structure and personnel numbers.

By 2022, it was a regular brigade of constant readiness with motorized rifle and tank battalions, artillery, air defense, reconnaissance, and support units. It was located close to Russia's northwestern borders and was part of a grouping intended for operations in the Baltic and Ukrainian directions.

During the war, the core personnel were supplemented by mobilized individuals, new contract soldiers, and attached assault groups. Therefore, one unit number conceals several successive sets of people: those who entered Ukraine in February 2022 and those who were sent to Kupyansk or Vovchansk two years later often never served together.

Kharkiv: The First Order and the First Failure

In the first days of the full-scale invasion, units of the 25th Brigade advanced from Belgorod Oblast towards Kharkiv. On the night and morning of February 27, light Russian groups entered the city. The calculation was based on speed, disorganization of the defense, and the assumption that a large city could be occupied without a long siege.

The Critical Threats Project and ISW recorded that Ukrainian forces repelled attacks by Russian motorized rifle units, including the 25th Brigade, and took confirmed prisoners. Russian groups that penetrated Kharkiv found themselves isolated. Already in the first major episode, the brigade failed its mission, and the war, instead of a short raid, turned into a protracted operation.

Initial losses cannot be reduced to a single reliable figure. Ukrainian reports mentioned a platoon of Military Unit 29760 destroyed in April: five killed, six captured, eight wounded, and ten missing. This is a statement by one side about a specific unit, not a full balance sheet for the brigade. But prisoners, obituaries, and family appeals confirmed the sheer scale of the discrepancy between the pre-war composition and what returned from Kharkiv Oblast.

The troops of the 6th Army failed to take Kharkiv. In the autumn of 2022, Russia also lost a significant part of the previously occupied region. For the 25th Brigade, this was not the end. The unit was replenished and maintained in the same direction, turning the failure of the first stage into a multi-year attempt to approach the same cities again.

Conscripts and a Contract the Family Never Saw

Already in the summer of 2022, families of missing servicemen appealed to Vladimir Putin. A publication by Sever.Realii featured the story of Kirill, a conscript who was sent to the reconnaissance company of Military Unit 29760 in the autumn of 2021. According to his mother, the unit claimed he had signed a contract, but the document itself was not provided to her.

In February, the unit was taken out for "exercises." Then, in phone conversations, his mother heard mortar explosions and whistling. Communication ceased, and the search shifted from the military system to relatives. This story does not prove that all conscripts of the brigade were forced into contracts. It shows an early mechanism: the serviceman's status and his route remained in the unit's documents, to which the family had no access.

In 2022, such appeals could still be attributed to the chaos of the first months. But the same complaints were repeated in 2024 and 2025: people went on missions, stopped responding, the unit did not report the outcome, and relatives searched for fellow servicemen, hospitals, lists of prisoners, and unofficial channels. The repetition turned chaos into a stable procedure.

Kupyansk: Attacks That Became Routine

In 2023, the 25th Brigade operated in the Kupyansk direction as part of the "West" grouping. The Russian command attempted to reach the Oskil River and reclaim strongholds lost during the Ukrainian counteroffensive. In November, Sergey Shoigu publicly named the 25th, 138th, and 114th Brigades as particularly distinguished in combat.

The open-source map did not show a comparable breakthrough. ISW analyses in 2024 placed units of the 25th and 138th Brigades on the Synkivka-Petropavlivka line northeast of Kupyansk. There, Russian units conducted repeated mechanized company-sized attacks. The same tree lines and approaches were assaulted for months.

This created the main contradiction of the official assessment. The brigade could be declared distinguished for the intensity of its combat work without publishing the cost of this intensity. How many groups did not return, how many vehicles were lost, and how many wounded were sent back to units were not mentioned in the minister's statement.

For a serviceman, such a war did not look like an arrow moving on a map, but rather a series of sorties. A small group would receive a task to occupy a tree line or a house, communication would cease, and evacuation depended on the situation and the commanders' decisions. It was after such sorties that families compiled lists of the missing, which did not match official casualty figures or prisoner lists.

Death Threats and Assaults with "Storm Z"

In August 2023, ASTRA reported the story of mobilized serviceman Artyom S. from Military Unit 29760. After returning from leave, he called his wife and asked her to contact the police, claiming that his commander had ordered two prisoners to kill him. His wife also said that mobilized soldiers were sent on assaults together with the "Storm Z" detachment. After the call, the man stopped communicating.

This story has a specific claimant and unit number, but no public criminal ruling confirming the order to kill. Therefore, it is correct to speak of a family's report and a demand for investigation. However, the plot itself is important: refusal or conflict with a commander shifted a serviceman from the category of subordinate to a potential target of internal violence.

Thus, the 25th Brigade appears in the broader system of "zeroing out." This word is used by servicemen for killing their own, sending them on a deliberately fatal mission, or documenting their death as a result of combat. The line between these options is often intentionally blurred: a person killed in an assault cannot say whether the order was a military necessity, a punishment, or a way to get rid of a complainer.

Ksenofontov: "Tiger" and Hero of Russia

Aleksey Ksenofontov commanded the 25th Brigade during the period of the most severe public accusations. Russian sources confirm his position and the awarding of the title Hero of Russia. In a television report, the Colonel was presented as a successful commander. It was under publications featuring this report that relatives began to massively inquire about the missing.

In September 2024, ASTRA published the account of Alina Bolvinova, the wife of contract soldier Mikhail Shchebetun. According to her, after short training, her husband was sent to Military Unit 29760 and then to Avdiivka. He last called on February 14. On March 9, the woman learned of his death from fellow servicemen; officially, he was initially listed as missing, and she struggled for a long time to obtain a death certificate.

Fellow servicemen, to whom the family referred, claimed that Ksenofontov was drunk and sent dozens of mobilized and contract soldiers on a deadly assault. After the first publication, other families contacted the editorial office. Vladimir Solovyov called the material a fake and the work of Ukrainian CIPSO; the relatives responded publicly: "Here I am. I am not a fake."

"Verstka" included Ksenofontov in the database of "zeroers" as case #10. The basis was the testimonies of fellow servicemen and relatives who accused the brigade commander of orders to "zero out." This is a journalistic database of accusations, not a judicial register of the guilty. But the state has not published the results of an independent investigation, nor a refutation with documents for each case. Instead of an investigation, the public response was an award.

2024 Petition: "The Unit Is Not Cooperating"

On May 28, 2024, relatives of servicemen from Military Unit 29760 created a collective petition. They directly accused the command of inaction and concealment of information. According to them, their loved ones had not been in contact after being sent to the territories of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts, were not listed in available records, and commanders were not responding.

The demands were extremely practical: improve the quality of searches, accept collective appeals, issue certificates, interact with military enlistment offices, organize evacuation in case of injury or death, and return personal belongings. This was not a political program or a demand to end the war. Families asked the unit to fulfill basic duties to its own servicemen.

The petition gathered 186 signatures. The small number does not reflect the number of missing: military relatives are dependent on the state, fear harming the serving member, and often act in closed chats. More important is the content – it coincided with stories from 2022 and with a new public appeal in 2025.

In April 2025, families again recorded a video. They said they were receiving identical formal responses, in which only the surnames changed, and could not find out from the unit whether a real search was being conducted. Three years of war did not make the procedure more transparent. Only the number of photos in the frame changed.

Vovchansk and Kursk Oblast: People Were Moved, Answers Were Not

In the spring and summer of 2024, some units of the 25th Brigade were linked to a new offensive in Kharkiv Oblast and fighting near Vovchansk. When Ukrainian troops entered Kursk Oblast, "Novaya Gazeta Europe" found messages in thematic chats from relatives about the transfer of assault troops from Military Unit 29760 from the Vovchansk direction to Kursk Oblast.

Such a redeployment explains part of the information gap. A serviceman could be listed in the Luhansk or Kharkiv grouping, actually end up in another region, be attached to an assault detachment, and go on a mission under different operational command. For the family, the only official address still remained Military Unit 29760.

For the command, mobility provided a reserve. For families, it created a labyrinth of responsibility: the field group refers to headquarters, headquarters to the grouping, the military enlistment office to the unit, and the unit replies that there is no information. In this labyrinth, the status of "missing in action" could persist for months even when fellow servicemen reported death.

1,098 Names: What This List Means

The "I Want to Find" list contains 1,098 names of deceased individuals attributed to the 25th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade. The project was created by Ukraine's Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War and works with family applications, information about prisoners, deceased, and found remains. Its dataset has a specific origin but is published by a Ukrainian state structure – a party to the war.

Therefore, 1,098 is not a final or automatically exhaustive figure. Full confirmation requires Russian orders for exclusion from lists, civil registry records, obituaries, burial information, and reconciliation of duplicates. Such an independent line-by-line verification of the entire file is not yet publicly available.

But the list cannot be reduced to "an enemy estimate." It is a named array, not a multiplication of authorized strength by an assumed percentage of losses. Individual surnames are confirmed by local memorial pages, family messages, and search channels. The probable problem with the list is not only possible errors but also an undercount of those who remain missing.

Even if 1,098 is used as a verifiable minimum for publication, it is an enormous number for a peacetime brigade. It means that several compositions of personnel passed through Military Unit 29760. The wounded, captured, and missing are not included in this figure, so the total irrecoverable and sanitary losses are inevitably higher. Their exact number is unknown.

From Brigade to Division

In late 2024 – early 2025, information emerged about the reorganization of the 25th Brigade into the 68th Guards Motorized Rifle Division. Russian military-analytical directories attribute the completion of this process to spring 2025. The new structure retained its historical regalia and connection to Military Unit 29760.

A division is not just a new name. It should include several regiments and more support, artillery, and command units. For the state, such an expansion demonstrates army growth. But it does not mean that the former personnel survived or that the brigade accumulated enough experienced cadres. New regiments can be created administratively and filled with new people.

This is precisely why the transformation looks like the end of the 25th Brigade's story. The number and banner not only survived losses – they became the basis for a larger formation. In organizational construction statistics, this is plus one division. In the "I Want to Find" list – 1,098 names before the transformation.

Ksenofontov's promotion and the unit's expansion solve one problem: they demonstrate to higher-ups the ability to continue the offensive. They do not answer families' questions about why bodies are not evacuated, who gave specific orders, and why death certificates had to be obtained through fellow servicemen and public appeals.

What Is Proven and What Remains an Accusation

Confirmed are the unit number, its deployment in Luga, subordination to the 6th Army, the 25th Brigade's participation in battles for Kharkiv and in the Kupyansk direction, the presence of its units on the Synkivka-Petropavlivka line, public praise from Sergey Shoigu, and the transformation of the formation into the 68th Division.

The appeals from families in 2022, 2024, and 2025 themselves are confirmed. The petition contains specific demands for evacuation, documents, and searches. ASTRA's publications feature named claimants and describe the fates of specific servicemen. The fact that Ksenofontov received the title of Hero of Russia is also undisputed.

Accusations of drunkenness during orders, intentional sending of groups to their death, and "zeroing out" have not been established by a court. They are based on the words of relatives and fellow servicemen. The absence of a public investigation does not make the accusations proven, but it also does not refute them. The correct phrasing is that the commander is accused, not found guilty.

The number 1,098 refers to the published named list of the "I Want to Find" project. It is not equal to the total sum of losses and currently lacks independent line-by-line verification of the entire dataset. It can only be used with attribution to the source and a methodological caveat.

Conclusion: The Unit Grew, Not Accountability

The 25th Brigade did not take Kharkiv in February 2022. It did not achieve a rapid breakthrough to Kupyansk in 2023 and did not provide families with a transparent search system in 2024. But by Russian organizational criteria, the unit proved successful: the commander became a Hero, and the brigade became a division.

This logic explains why complaints did not ruin careers or halt expansion. The command evaluates a formation based on its ability to field people again and execute new orders. A lost battalion can be replenished; a missing person can be recorded in a separate register; the unit number continues to live on.

1,098 names show the price of such resilience. This is not "a brigade once destroyed," but a sequence of personnel compositions that passed through one administrative body. Some people disappeared near Kharkiv, others near Synkivka, still others near Vovchansk or after redeployment. For reporting purposes, they belonged to one Military Unit 29760. For families, each search began anew.

The transformation into a division did not close the history of the 25th Brigade. It scaled its mechanism. If family accusations are not investigated, the system transfers the same practices to the new structure along with the headquarters, regalia, and commanders. On paper, Russia gained another division. In reality, it expanded a conveyor belt that has already left behind more than a thousand published names.