Five challenges facing Ukraine's new army chief

KYIV - Ukraine’s new army head Oleksandr Syrsky, who was appointed in

Kyiv’s largest military shake up

since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, is taking the helm at a precarious moment in the war.

After nearly two years of fighting, these are the five most pressing challenges the 58-year-old commander, who was born in Russia, is facing.

Foreign aid

Ukraine’s allies, particularly Washington and Brussels, are

struggling to keep up aid packages

that have so far allowed Kyiv to hold out against Russia.

The EU this month

unblocked €50 billion (S$70 billion)

in aid, but US senators have only managed to clear a first hurdle to

a potential future package

after months of political deadlock.

The uncertainty over Ukraine’s resources come as Russia turns it economy to a war footing, ramping up production and recruitment.

Mobilisation

Ukraine’s military and political leadership are at odds over how to replenish the army’s ranks, following two years of costly fighting that Washington believes has killed around 70,000 Ukrainian soldiers.

Colonel-General Syrsky’s predecessor had urged President Volodymyr Zelensky to add 500,000 servicemen to the army, but the Ukrainian leader rejected the unpopular appeal and advocated a more efficient rotations system.

Mobilisation legislation is

working its way through parliament

while exhausted and depleted Ukrainian units appealing for rotations off the front are meanwhile struggling to hold back waves of Russian forces.

Defence lines

Ukraine’s failed counteroffensive last summer crashed into nearly impenetrable Russian defensive lines, which Kyiv now wants to replicate across the front to frustrate slow by steady Russian advances.

Entrenching is a difficult task given the front line stretches some 1,000 kilometres and Ukrainian forces are facing oncoming assaults in

eastern hotspots like Avdiivka

and Kupyansk.

Ukraine’s airspace

Mr Zelensky has made it a priority for Ukraine in 2024 to gain control of its airspace as it faces down waves of Russian drone and missile attacks.

Yet, even after the West bolstered Ukraine’s air defence systems, securing ammunition for those weapons remains an issue.

Col-Gen Syrsky also faces the dilemma of whether to utilise the systems for defence or in an offensive ways to target Moscow’s airforce on Russian territory or over the Black Sea.

Ukraine, which is also

expecting to take deliveries of F-16 fighter jets

in 2024, says controlling the airspace over the country is key to making advances on the front.

Shoes to fill

The outgoing army chief, General Valeriy Zaluzhny, was

one of the most respected and trusted public figures in Ukraine

with recent polling showing he had won the trust more than 90 per cent of Ukrainians.

By contrast, surveys in December showed nearly 50 per cent of the country had

never heard of Col-Gen Syrsky.

In Ukrainian media, he has been presented as indifferent to military casualties, a reputation he appeared to confront in a statement describing soldiers’ lives as the “main asset” of the army. AFP