President of Ukraine V. Zelensky nevertheless dismissed the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine V. Zaluzhny, and also announced a large-scale reboot of the generals. The President is obviously trying to gain support in the army, feeling the influence of V. Zaluzhny, and announced a whole set of steps popular among the military (reduction of headquarters, transfer of rear units to the front, and so on); emphasized the names of military generals who will come to the new command structures and allegedly stand on his side.
In turn, it seems that V. Zaluzhny did not submit his voluntary resignation and certainly has not yet accepted V. Zelensky’s offer to take another position in the President’s team, which emphasizes the confrontation between the parties on this issue.
Now a promising path into politics is opening up for V. Zaluzhny, and they say that in 1-3 months he is going to begin his political activity (in the meantime, he will rest for “a couple of weeks”).
Instead of V. Zaluzhny comes General A. Syrsky - who has vast military experience and political loyalty to the OP; being the leader of successful operations near Kiev in 2022 and the offensive in the Kharkov region in 2022; as well as a failed counter-offensive near Bakhmut at the end of 2023. At the same time, A. Syrsky’s closest relatives live in the Russian Federation (father, mother, brother) and have pronounced pro-Putin sentiments, which further strengthens the distrust of A. Syrsky in the army and in the patriotic environment of Ukraine.
In this regard, some bloggers focused on P. Poroshenko have already called on people to go to the Maidan (the central square in Kyiv) to protest against the dismissal of V. Zaluzhny, which could be a test of the oppressive activity of Ukrainian society.
Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine V. Zaluzhny, as a potential presidential candidate, is somewhat similar to the early V. Zelensky. This is also a serious media image, created and embodied by war heroes, which needs to be shown to society. But from the point of view of preparing to govern the country, V. Zaluzhny is not very ready for this. Now the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine V. Zaluzhny is rather an effective “icebreaker” against President V. Zelensky, which both ex-President P. Poroshenko and other opposition politicians are ready to use.
Ruslan Bortnik
