 The small unit consisted mainly of the Student Battalion (Kurin) of Sich Riflemen, a unit of the Khmelnytsky Cadet School, and a Free Cossacks company.Just before the assault Tymchenko was replaced by D.Nosenko, while Tymchenko left for Nizhyn in attempt to recruit the locally quartered Shevchenko Regiment (800 soldiers) on the Ukrainian side.Nonetheless on January 30, 1918 the regiment sided with the Soviet regime, the news of which forced the Ukrainian garrison of Kruty hastily to withdraw.