Key Takeaways

Military Unit 21720 is the 38th Separate Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade, permanently stationed in Yekaterinoslavka, Amur Oblast. The formation is part of the 35th Combined Arms Army of the Eastern Military District.

In 2022, open Ukrainian sources identified Colonel Andrey Kurbanov as the brigade commander. The Ukrainian side included him in lists of commanders of formations operating in the Kyiv direction. This constitutes an official accusatory assertion by the Ukrainian side, not a court verdict against Kurbanov himself.

Open regional sources confirm the deaths of Military Unit 21720 personnel in the very first weeks of the full-scale invasion. For example, Junior Sergeant Aleksandr Shubnikov died on March 10, 2022, in Kyiv Oblast; the open database also contains confirmed records for other servicemen of the unit.

In August 2026, the Belogorsk Garrison Military Court heard an administrative case in which the commander of Military Unit 21720 was listed as the defendant. The fact of the case itself is confirmed by the Russian state judicial system; the content of the disputed decision from the case file is not fully disclosed.

The "Commanders of Failure" website already contains a dossier on Major Ruslan Petrukhin, deputy commander of a motorized rifle battalion for armaments of Military Unit 21720, who died in 2022. This provides an entry point for mapping the unit's command staff.

What is Military Unit 21720

The 38th Separate Guards Motorized Rifle Vitebsk Brigade is one of the key formations of the 35th Combined Arms Army of the Eastern Military District. Its permanent deployment point is Yekaterinoslavka village, Amur Oblast. The formation traces its history back to Soviet Guards formations, but for the current investigation, something else is more important: it is the number 21720 that links commanders, the deceased, court proceedings, and service records.

In open reference sources, the brigade's structure is described as a typical heavy motorized rifle brigade: three motorized rifle battalions, a tank battalion, artillery, rocket artillery, air defense, reconnaissance, communications, engineering, and logistics units. This means that traces in open sources should be sought not only by the name "38th Brigade" but also by the unit number, positions within battalions, and staff personnel.

The Kyiv Direction and the Question of Command Responsibility

In 2022, Ukrainian media and state information structures identified Colonel Andrey Kurbanov as the commander of the 38th Brigade. His surname appeared in lists published by the Ukrainian side of Russian commanders whose formations participated in the operation in the Kyiv direction.

It is fundamentally important here to distinguish three levels of assertions. First, the presence of the formation and its servicemen in the Kyiv direction is confirmed by open records of losses. Second, Kurbanov was publicly identified as the commander of Military Unit 21720. Third, claims of personal criminal responsibility for specific crimes require a separate evidentiary basis and a verdict; we have not found such a verdict within the scope of this study.

The journalistic project Slidstvo.Info also reported that Kurbanov had previously come under the scrutiny of Russian military investigators due to abuses in the payment of bonuses to subordinates. This report must be presented as a conclusion of a journalistic investigation until a primary record of a Russian criminal or court case is added to the evidentiary base.

Losses: What Can Be Confirmed by Names

Official Russian casualty statistics for individual brigades are not published. Therefore, verification is built from the bottom up — through obituaries, regional memorial books, court materials, prisoner lists, and confirmed service records of military personnel.

One of the early confirmed cases is Junior Sergeant Aleksandr Shubnikov. The open database Poteru, citing an Amur regional source, indicates that he served in the 38th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade and died on March 10, 2022, in Kyiv Oblast. Another confirmed record pertains to Corporal Semyon Shcherbakov, who died on July 1, 2022. The internal "Commanders of Failure" database contains a dossier on Major Ruslan Petrukhin, deputy commander of a motorized rifle battalion for armaments, who died on June 10, 2022.

These individual records do not automatically allow for inferring the overall scale of the brigade's losses. However, they enable the documented confirmation of the unit's participation in the war and the creation of a named registry, which can then be cross-referenced with cemeteries, regional payments, orders for exclusion from unit rosters, and search requests from relatives.

Russian Judicial Trace in 2026

The Belogorsk Garrison Military Court is a natural point of inquiry for a unit stationed in Amur Oblast. The court schedule for August 13, 2026, includes case No. 2a-104/2026, with Denis Kravets as the administrative plaintiff and the commander of Military Unit 21720 as the administrative defendant. Category: challenging a decision, action, or inaction of a military administrative body.

It cannot be reliably determined from the open case file what exactly Kravets is challenging. Therefore, the material should not attribute the case to a dispute over payments, injury, dismissal, or missing person status without a separate document. However, the mere fact that the command of Military Unit 21720 is a defendant in an administrative dispute is a verifiable Russian primary trace.

Command Staff: Who Can Already Be Linked to the Unit

Andrey Kurbanov — publicly identified as the commander of the 38th Brigade in 2022. Any assertions about his subsequent position as of August 2026 require separate, up-to-date verification.

Ruslan Petrukhin — Major, deputy commander of a motorized rifle battalion for armaments. His link to Military Unit 21720 is recorded in several open datasets and has already been included in a separate "Commanders of Failure" dossier.

The next stage is to reconstruct the chain of battalion commanders, service chiefs, and deputy brigade commanders using documents on awards, court decisions, procurements, obituaries, and family inquiries. For Military Unit 21720, this is especially important: in open sources, the unit is noticeably less "personified" than the 64th or 55th Brigades.

What Is Confirmed and What Is Not Yet

Confirmed: Military Unit number 21720, affiliation with the 38th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade and the 35th Combined Arms Army, deployment in Yekaterinoslavka; identification of Andrey Kurbanov as the brigade commander in 2022 in several open sources; specific named losses; the existence of an administrative case in 2026 with the commander of Military Unit 21720 as the defendant.

Requires a caveat: Ukrainian assertions about the involvement of specific Russian commanders in the killings of civilians. These are accusations by a party to the conflict and journalistic attributions, as long as they are not linked to a specific criminal proceeding, evidence, and court decision.

Not established: the full extent of the 38th Brigade's losses; the current commander as of August 2026; proven personal responsibility of the Military Unit 21720 command for specific episodes of crimes.

Conclusion: The Unit Number Is More Visible Than Its Command Chain

For Military Unit 21720, a verifiable framework is already emerging: deployment and subordination, the commander during the Kyiv operation, several named losses, and a Russian administrative dispute with the unit's command. This is sufficient to confirm the formation's participation in the war and to begin linking individuals to specific positions, but insufficient to conclude personal responsibility for individual crimes.

The main gap is the change of command after 2022. Until this is closed by orders, fresh official publications, and court documents, Kurbanov's surname cannot be automatically applied to all subsequent operations of the 38th Brigade. A strong version of this investigation is built not on a single name, but on a dated chain: brigade commander, staff, battalions, decisions, and consequences.