The news about Ukraine's ** Zelensky's preparation to remove the commander-in-chief of the armed forces Zaluzhny actually came out as early as the end of 2022, but at that time most people thought that this was an information war by Russia to sow discord between high-level relations in Ukraine and hit the morale of the Ukrainian military and civilians, and did not pay attention to it. However, in the second half of 2023, as the Ukrainian army lost the important town of **Mut, and the long-planned summer offensive also failed completely, the contradictions between Zelensky and Zaluzhny broke out in full force, and many senior cadres of the ruling party publicly blamed Zaluzhny, and even Zelensky himself repeatedly refuted Zaluzhny's remarks in public. Against this background, the rhetoric about Zelensky's possible ouster of Zaluzhny has finally been taken seriously by all parties. On February 8, local time, the boots finally fell, and Zelensky officially signed the order to remove Zaluzhny and appointed Army Commander General Syrsky to succeed Zaluzhny.
Sersky. According to the Global Times, on February 8, local time, Zelensky released a speech on social media. In his speech, Zelensky said that he had signed an executive order officially removing Zaluzhny from the post of commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, while appointing Colonel-General Alexander Syrsky to replace him. He said that Syrsky directly commanded the defense of Kyiv, the Kharkiv counterattack and the **Mutt offensive and defensive battle, and is an experienced senior general, and he believes that Syrsky has the ability to lead the Ukrainian army to victory. In addition, Zelensky also said that he is still optimistic about the future of the war, despite the fact that the Ukrainian army is now facing some difficulties. So who exactly is Syrsky? Why did Zelensky choose him as commander-in-chief of the armed forces? What will be the ultimate impact of this decision? Let's briefly introduce and analyze it today.
Alexander Syrsky was born in 1965 in the village of Nowunki, Vladimir Oblast, in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, less than 200 kilometers from Moscow, and his parents and grandparents were also natives, so Syrsky was a native of Russia. In 1982, Syrsky was admitted to the Moscow Higher Military Command School, and after graduation he was assigned to the Kiev Military District as an infantry platoon commander. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, according to the agreement between Russia and Ukraine, Russians who served in the Ukrainian army could either continue to serve in the Ukrainian army or return to the Russian army, and Ukrainians who served in the Russian army also enjoyed the same treatment.
Syrsky is a native of Russia, and the vast majority of Russian officers who served in Ukraine like him have returned to Russia, but Syrsky thinks that there are too many officers in the Russian army and it will be difficult to get ahead in the future. And now a large number of ethnic Russian officers in the Ukrainian army have returned to Russia, which has left a lot of promotion positions, and the probability of being the best in the Ukrainian army is greater, so Syrsky said goodbye to his homeland and relatives and stayed in the Ukrainian army.
And Syrsky's ** is indeed accurate, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine failed to establish a perfect officer training mechanism, and relied very much on officers who received Soviet military education, Syrsky entered the fast lane of promotion, and was awarded the rank of major general in 2009, becoming one of the youngest generals in the Ukrainian army. However, Syrsky's performance on the battlefield was not satisfactory, and in 2014, when the conflict in Donbas broke out, Syrsky was ordered to lead troops to suppress independence movements across eastern Ukraine.
In order to show that he and Russia have broken off, Syrsky allowed his subordinates to burn, kill and loot the Russian people in various parts of eastern Ukraine, which led to many Russian people who were originally waiting to see the situation to join the side of the pro-Russian forces, and also strengthened the determination of the pro-Russian forces to fight, and the cruel treatment of the Russians in eastern Ukraine also prompted Russia to send troops to interfere in the situation in eastern Ukraine. In the fighting in early 2015, Syrsky was eager for quick success and blindly adopted the advice of Western military advisers, which eventually led to the main force of the Ukrainian army being surrounded in the village of Debaltsevo, which was devastated by the Russian army and pro-Russian forces, and finally forced Ukraine to sign the "Minsk Agreements".
Dressed in a Junsersky outfit.
Although Syrsky lost the main force of the Ukrainian army in the battle of Debaltsevo, he finally suppressed the pro-Russian popular independence activities in Kharkiv Oblast, and also seized most of the land in Luhansk and Donetsk Oblasts, so in 2016, Syrsky was promoted to lieutenant general, and in 2019 he was appointed commander of the Ukrainian Army. After the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, Syrsky first commanded the defense of Kyiv and thwarted the Russian army's attempt to quickly occupy Kyiv. In the autumn of 2022, Syrsky, through excellent strategic deception, seized the opportunity of the empty forces of the Russian army on the Kharkiv front and launched a full-scale offensive to recapture a large amount of territory. However, in the defense of **Mutter and the summer offensive, Selsky was mediocre and failed to achieve his goal. And because he often sends troops into towns surrounded by the Russian army on three sides, or forces soldiers to storm the well-defended fortresses of the Russian army, often causing a large number of **, so he is called "** Mut butcher" by Ukrainian soldiers.
* The Battle of Mutter was brutal.
A brief understanding of Syrsky's life shows why Zelensky chose him to replace Zaluzhny. First of all, Syrsky's military thinking is similar to Zelensky's, both despise the soldiers** and attach great importance to the gains and losses of one city and one place, and there is a significant difference between Zaluzhny, who is always opposed to sticking to a certain place and has repeatedly advocated the withdrawal of troops from the Russian army's three-sided encirclement. With the appointment of Syrsky as commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, Zelensky will have less military opposition.
Second, the handover of work is more convenient. As we have analyzed in previous articles, the temporary change of generals may lead to a large number of military affairs being difficult to be handled in a timely manner due to the handover, and Syrsky himself is the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Army and has a relatively sufficient grasp of military affairs. Moreover, Ukraine's navy and air force are largely gone, so having Syrsky as commander of the Armed Forces of Ukraine can minimize the negative impact of the handover on the command center.
The Russian-Ukrainian conflict is still in the midst of scorching, and thirdly, Syrsky is inherently deficient in the political sphere and cannot pose a threat to Zelensky. Syrsky is a native of Russia, and although he has proven his loyalty to Ukraine through a series of military operations and even the burning and looting of ethnic Russians, Syrsky, as an ethnic Russian, will never be "his own man" for Ukraine, where neo-Nazism is rife. Moreover, Syrsky was also born in a Soviet military academy, which is obviously not enough for Ukraine, which is now vigorously promoting de-Sovietization and de-Russification.
In addition, Syrsky often forcibly defends or attacks regardless of the soldiers, and is also widely criticized by grassroots officers and soldiers. Zaluzhny, on the other hand, is a native of Ukraine, and has not served in the Soviet army, so he has a very "clean background". Moreover, he has repeatedly demanded that he give up unrealistic campaign goals in order to save soldiers' lives, so he has won the support of a large number of officers and soldiers at the grassroots level. It is precisely because of this that Zaluzhny is more conducive to establishing his own political power and threatening Zelensky's position, and this is also the point that Zelensky fears the most, and it is an important reason for Zelensky to remove Zaluzhny. Syrsky, who was ostracized by Ukrainian ultranationalists and disgusted by the grassroots officers and soldiers of the Ukrainian army, obviously found it difficult to cultivate his own political power and could only be completely dependent on Zelensky.
The power caused the two to go their separate ways.
So what will be the impact of Zelensky's temporary change? On the battlefield, the Ukrainian army will take a series of military actions at any cost. When Syrsky was appointed, he promised that he would hold Avdeyevka at all costs. In the future, the Ukrainian army will carry out more military operations regardless of the first class, but in the context of the overall decline in the quality of equipment and soldiers, this kind of ignorance will only accelerate the speed of the defeat of the Ukrainian army.
There is a high probability that there will be civil strife in Ukraine!
On **, the move will clearly exacerbate infighting in Ukraine. Originally, Zelensky asked Zaluzhny to go to the UK to serve as Ukraine's ambassador to the UK, but Zaluzhny refused the appointment, claiming that as long as the war does not end, he will not leave Ukraine. This is an open and ** clamour, Zaluzhny stays in Ukraine, whether he is preparing for a counterattack against Zelensky, we will wait and see. Internationally, although the United States and the West have not yet commented on this appointment, the Washington Post has previously disclosed that the United States resolutely opposes Zelensky's removal of Zaluzhny, and now Zelensky's insistence on going his own way will inevitably arouse the dissatisfaction of the United States, and a new round of aid to Ukraine may be even more difficult to approve.
All in all, this temporary change of generals is completely driven by Zelensky's personal ambition for power, and it can be said that it will do more harm than good to Ukraine's current situation.