"Kind of a private army". Why does Syrsky create assault troops if Air Assault Forces are already exist

President says the decision to create Assault Forces has already been made Volodymyr Zelenskyy: "We have assault battalions and regiments that have shown good results in 2025. And we decided that we needed to go into the legal sphere. The Russians decided to do the same thing as we did. We will create."

And this is the decision that provoked the scandal.

Assault troops are called the "private army" of the commander-in-chief Alexander Syrsky. They say that even their cockade has a leopard on it, which indicates that they belong to the stormtroopers. And "Bars" is Syrsky's military nickname.

The new type of troops will be a shield for the destruction of the airborne assault troops, critics say. Colonel Valentyn Manko, who heads the Assault Troops' department and is likely to become their commander soon, is facing raiding charges.

The General Staff claims that this criticism is a disinformation wave. Possibly with political overtones, the source said LIGA.net in the General Staff.

You will learn from this text:

• who was the ideologist behind the creation of the Assault Troops;
• how and from whom they will be formed;
• what scandals the Assault Troops provoked even before their official appearance.