After the defeat at Čačak, Yugoslav partisan commanders removed Mesić and many of his former 369th comrades from the brigade in Belgrade late 1944. Some of them, such as Lieutenant Nikola Sabski, the acting intelligence officer of the brigade, were shot as suspected Gestapo collaborators. Many were also suspected of being Soviet infiltrators. The brigade subsequently suffered heavy casualties battling retreating German forces during 1945 on the Syrmian Front and near Slavonski Brod.