After surrendering twice since 2014, the 501st Marine Battalion has a lot to prove.
Yet another Ukrainian unit has joined Ukraine’s invasion of Russia’s Kursk Oblast. On Sunday, the Ukrainian marine corps’ 501st Marine Battalion announced its presence in Kursk—in a video depicting marines tearing down a Russian flag “in one of the settlements of Kursk.”
The battalion’s 400 or so marines “are at the forefront of combat missions,” the unit stated. But that wasn’t always the case. The 501st Battalion has an unfortunate history of avoiding combat. In that sense, the Kursk campaign is an opportunity for redemption.
The 501st Marine Battalion was part of the Ukrainian garrison in Crimea when Russian troops invaded the strategic peninsula in 2014. As outgunned Ukrainian forces fled the peninsula, just 64 of the 501st Marine Battalion’s personnel joined them. The others—potentially hundreds in all—voluntarily stayed in Crimea, effectively siding with the peninsula’s Russian occupiers.
The Ukrainian defense ministry rebuilt the 501st Marine Battalion.
