New war tactics

Zelensky reorganizes: the next general must go

Selenskyj is restructuring the military leadership according to his ideas.(Bild: AFP or licensors)

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced another new appointment on Friday as part of his army reorganization. Major General Anatoly Barhilevych will become the new Chief of the General Staff, the head of state announced in his evening video address.

Barhilevych succeeds Serhiy Shaptala. The appointment was made at the suggestion of the new commander-in-chief Olexander Syrskyj. Barhilevych is "an experienced person who understands the tasks in this war and the goals of Ukraine", said Zelenskyi.

Listen to his speech:

After weeks of speculation, Zelensky announced the dismissal of the previous army chief Valery Salushnyi on Thursday. The move had been expected after Salushnyj publicly criticized the president in November. He justified the change with the failure of the offensive in the previous year.

Replacement of Major General was foreseeable
Salushnyj is highly respected in the country and also within the army. However, his successor Syrskyj can boast the most spectacular successes of the war: the defense of Kiev in the initial phase of Russian aggression and the spectacular counter-offensive in the Kharkiv region in the late summer of 2022.

Shaptala's dismissal comes as no surprise, as he was considered a confidant of Salushnyi. The latter had fueled replacement rumors a few days ago by publishing a joint photo on Shaptala's birthday. "It will still be very difficult for us, but nobody will have anything to be ashamed of," he wrote in the photo.

New boss, new tactics
Syrskyj wants to expand the use of unmanned weapons systems and electronic warfare to defend against the Russian invasion. This is a building block for victory in the liberation struggle, the colonel general wrote on the Telegram news channel on Friday. "Only by changing and constantly improving the means and methods of warfare will we be able to successfully pursue this path."

Syrskyj (right) is to initiate the military turnaround.(Bild: AFP)

He described the rapid and accurate supply of troops at the front with foreign armaments as equally important. "The lives and health of the soldiers were and remain the most important value of the Ukrainian army," wrote Syrskyj. He advocated a rotation of troops between combat missions and periods of rest and training. A balance had to be found for this.

High expectations
Expectations of the new commander-in-chief are high. Mychajlo Podoljak, an advisor in the President's Office, said on Ukrainian Unified Television that Syrskyj would have to take stock of the situation because only up to 300,000 of the one million soldiers mobilized for the war had been deployed. It had to be clarified who was deployed where. Only then would it be possible to say how many recruits were still needed, said Podoljak.

Many soldiers are therefore far removed from the war. It must also be clarified how those who have already been deployed for almost 24 months can be replaced by rotation.