Russia’s Putin signals impatience over Ukraine war in commander switch

PARIS - President Vladimir Putin’s move to

replace his top commander in Ukraine

is a sign of military disarray and his growing impatience in a war that Russia is not winning, analysts said.

The defence ministry in Moscow said on Wednesday it had, again, replaced its top commander in Ukraine, putting

army chief of staff Valery Gerasimov

in charge.

His predecessor, General Sergei Surovikin, a veteran of Moscow’s wars since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, will become General Gerasimov’s deputy, working alongside two other generals, it said.

Russian and Western observers said the move was a sign of Mr Putin becoming exasperated by Ukrainian resistance, but also by fault lines in the Russian army command as it faces difficult demands which could include launching a possible major offensive within weeks.

Analysts said putting an army chief of staff in charge of an operation on the ground is highly unusual, as the job is usually removed from the battlefield, involving coordination, political contacts, threat evaluation and logistics choices.

‘Not going to plan’

That Mr Putin made the appointment anyway shows that “things are not going to plan”, said a Moscow-based defence analyst, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity.

The short legacy of Gen Surovikin – famous for his shaved head and uncompromising scowl, and appointed only in October – was marked by missile attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure, an apparent attempt to cow civilians into submission.

But that strategy has not shown signs of working, adding to Russia’s frustrations over its failure, nearly 11 months into the war, to beat Ukraine’s army, undermine its government or warn off

Western countries increasingly willing to send sophisticated weapons to Kyiv.

Troop morale took a major hit when Russia suffered its worst military losses from a single Ukrainian attack with

the deaths of at least 89 servicemen in Makiivka

in eastern Ukraine over the New Year.

Some analysts, meanwhile, questioned the wisdom of key changes at the helm while fierce fighting is ongoing around the front-line city of Bakhmut.

“It’s inconsistent to change the head of operations in the middle of a battle,” said Ms Tatiana Kastoueva-Jean, a researcher on Russia at IFRI, a French international relations think-tank.

“It doesn’t send a good signal to unbalance the entire hierarchy from top to bottom,” she told AFP.

Experts questioned by AFP said Moscow’s move may well herald intensifying military action, such as a fresh offensive and a possible new mobilisation drive.

“It is obvious that there are plans to expand the scale of fighting,” Mr Alexander Khramchikhin, a Russian military analyst, told AFP.

He said the goal would be to gain full control of the four Ukrainian regions Russia claims to have annexed on Sept 30 – Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.

Russia currently does not control the full extent of the Ukrainian regions of Luhansk and Donetsk, while Russian forces pulled out of Kherson city in November. Russia has, meanwhile, never occupied Zaporizhzhia city.

‘Serious offensives coming’

“This is confirmation, if we needed it, that there will be serious offensives coming, and that even Putin recognises that poor coordination has been an issue,” said Mr Mark Galeotti, at the Royal United Services Institute think-tank in the UK.

The brevity of Gen Surovikin’s command, meanwhile, points to Mr Putin’s growing impatience, although experts admitted that the motives behind the Kremlin master’s opaque decision-making are often difficult to gauge fully.

“Everyone seems to be in shock,” tweeted Ms Tatiana Stanovaya, an analyst specialising in Russian elites.

“A great many knowledgeable people seem to not get the gist of this decision.”

Especially since the Makiivka deaths, Mr Putin has had to deal with “long, sharp, emotional debates about the eternal Russian questions: ‘who is to blame’ and ‘what to do’,” she wrote.

Some observers said Mr Putin’s personnel change in Ukraine was perhaps motivated by the desire for a loyal ally, but Mr Galeotti said the basis for such trusted partnerships was dwindling.

“If you keep appointing, rotating, burning your stars, setting unrealistic expectations, arbitrarily demoting them, that’s not going to win loyalty,” he said.

The Russian leader will also find it increasingly hard to assuage the doubts of parts of the Moscow elite and public opinion, Mr Khramchikhin said, detecting “discontent on why... (Russia) has not won this war yet”. AFP