This is how many new brigades Ukraine has for its coming offensive

The Ukrainian Armed Forces have finished forming the new brigades that will be used in their coming offensive according to a statement from the country’s Minister of Interior. 

Ihor Klymenko said in an interview with the state-owned news agency Interfax-Ukraine on May 2nd that eight new brigades had been “fully formed” for the counter-offensive.

“The brigades… are fully formed,” Klymenko explained, adding that there were eight in total and plans in the works to create even more brigades for the fight against Russia. 

“We have plans to form additional brigades, because there is a demand for it, and we have the opportunities," Ukraine’s Minister of Interior clarified for Interfax-Ukraine. 

Klymenko also said that each brigade was being refitted and would undergo two to three weeks of additional training appropriate to the role the soldiers would perform. 

Interfax-Ukraine reported that each brigade would be tasked with conducting offensive operations in cooperation with the country’s Defense Forces during the new counter-offensive.

"The success of the operation in one direction or another will depend on each brigade, each unit, each serviceman and policeman," Klymenko said during his interview. 

Ukraine’s new brigades total 40,000 volunteers that joined up at a time when Kyiv is finding it more and more difficult to recruit new troops according to a Reuters report. 

The brigades benefitted from what Reuters called an “aggressive campaign on social media” as well as from billboards aimed at enticing “highly motivated volunteers.”

However, some volunteers didn't need any additional motivation to join the units that will be taking the fight to Russia, some just want to get into the battle as soon as possible. 

"I want the war to be over as soon as possible and I hope the strike brigade will make it happen a lot faster," Aleks, a soldier from the new Border of Steel brigade, told Reuters. 

Ukraine’s other new brigades have names that are just as striking as Border of Steel and include Hurricane, Spartan, Chervona Kalyna, Frontier, Rage, Azov, and Kara Dag. 

Border of Steel is commanded by Valeriy Padytel according to Reuters, the man who led a group of border guards in the defense of Mariupol in the early months of the war. 

Padytel was captured by Russia after the remaining Ukrainian forces held up in the city’s Azovsteel Plant were ordered to surrender, but now he’s back fighting and out for blood.

"We will keep training, will train all the time while the brigade is being formed and while we are waiting for battle orders." Padytel said about his brigade according to Reuters.

Recruitment of Ukraine’s new brigades began back in February and their coming fight couldn’t be more important to the war effort since their struggle will decide the fate of the country. 

“If the fighters are unable to take back territory from occupying Russian troops,” wrote Insider’s Isobel Van Hagen, “it could prompt Western allies to propose negotiations between Kyiv and Putin's regime,” a situation that would prove problematic for Ukraine.