In the present paper, which is an outgrowth of the authors’ joint work with Anthony Bak and Roozbeh Hazrat on the unitary commutator calculus [9, 27, 30, 31], generators are found for the mixed commutator subgroups of relative elementary groups and unrelativized versions of commutator formulas are obtained in the setting of Bak’s unitary groups. It is a direct sequel of the papers [71, 76, 78, 79] and [77, 80], where similar results were obtained for
G
L
(
n
,
R
)
GL(n,R)
and for Chevalley groups over a commutative ring with 1, respectively. Namely, let
(
A
,
Λ
)
(A,\Lambda )
be any form ring and let
n
≥
3
n\ge 3
. Bak’s hyperbolic unitary group
G
U
(
2
n
,
A
,
Λ
)
GU(2n,A,\Lambda )
is considered. Further, let
(
I
,
Γ
)
(I,\Gamma )
be a form ideal of
(
A
,
Λ
)
(A,\Lambda )
. One can associate with the ideal
(
I
,
Γ
)
(I,\Gamma )
the corresponding true elementary subgroup
F
U
(
2
n
,
I
,
Γ
)
FU(2n,I,\Gamma )
and the relative elementary subgroup
E
U
(
2
n
,
I
,
Γ
)
EU(2n,I,\Gamma )
of
G
U
(
2
n
,
A
,
Λ
)
GU(2n,A,\Lambda )
. Let
(
J
,
Δ
)
(J,\Delta )
be another form ideal of
(
A
,
Λ
)
(A,\Lambda )
. In the present paper an unexpected result is proved that the nonobvious type of generators for
[
E
U
(
2
n
,
I
,
Γ
)
,
E
U
(
2
n
,
J
,
Δ
)
]
\big [EU(2n,I,\Gamma ),EU(2n,J,\Delta )\big ]
, as constructed in the authors’ previous papers with Hazrat, are redundant and can be expressed as products of the obvious generators, the elementary conjugates
Z
i
j
(
ξ
,
c
)
=
T
j
i
(
c
)
T
i
j
(
ξ
)
T
j
i
(
−
c
)
Z_{ij}(\xi ,c)=T_{ji}(c)T_{ij}(\xi )T_{ji}(-c)
, and the elementary commutators
Y
i
j
(
a
,
b
)
=
[
T
i
j
(
a
)
,
T
j
i
(
b
)
]
Y_{ij}(a,b)=[T_{ij}(a),T_{ji}(b)]
, where
a
∈
(
I
,
Γ
)
a\in (I,\Gamma )
,
b
∈
(
J
,
Δ
)
b\in (J,\Delta )
,
c
∈
(
A
,
Λ
)
c\in (A,\Lambda )
, and
ξ
∈
(
I
,
Γ
)
∘
(
J
,
Δ
)
\xi \in (I,\Gamma )\circ (J,\Delta )
. It follows that
[
F
U
(
2
n
,
I
,
Γ
)
,
F
U
(
2
n
,
J
,
Δ
)
]
=
[
E
U
(
2
n
,
I
,
Γ
)
,
E
U
(
2
n
,
J
,
Δ
)
]
\big [FU(2n,I,\Gamma ),FU(2n,J,\Delta )\big ]=\big [EU(2n,I,\Gamma ),EU(2n,J,\Delta )\big ]
. In fact, much more precise generation results are established. In particular, even the elementary commutators
Y
i
j
(
a
,
b
)
Y_{ij}(a,b)
should be taken for one long root position and one short root position. Moreover, the
Y
i
j
(
a
,
b
)
Y_{ij}(a,b)
are central modulo
E
U
(
2
n
,
(
I
,
Γ
)
∘
(
J
,
Δ
)
)
EU(2n,(I,\Gamma )\circ (J,\Delta ))
and behave as symbols. This makes it possible to generalize and unify many previous results, including the multiple elementary commutator formula, and dramatically simplify their proofs.