TOP RUSSIAN GENERAL PUT IN CHARGE OF UKRAINE AS “THE WAR IS GETTING BIGGER”

Valery Gerasimov (L) replaces Sergey Surovikin (R) as the new commander of Russian forces in Ukraine.

Thu 12 January 2023:

After months of failures on the battlefield, Russia ordered its top general to take charge of its invasion of Ukraine in the biggest shake-up of its military command structure yet.

The Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov has been named as the overall commander of forces for what Moscow refers to as its “special military operation” in Ukraine, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced on Wednesday.

“On January 11, 2023, Russian Defense Minister, Gen. of the Army Sergei Shoigu, made new appointments to lead the special military operation. Chief of the General Staff, Gen. of the Army Valery Gerasimov, was appointed Commander of the Joint Group of Troops (Forces),” the ministry said.

“His deputies are Commander-in-Chief of the Aerospace Forces, Gen. of the Army Sergei Surovikin, Commander-in-Chief of the Land Forces, Gen. of the Army Oleg Salyukov, and Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, Col. General Alexei Kim,” it added.

The action effectively demoted General Sergey Surovikin, known in the Russian media as “General Armageddon” for his alleged ruthlessness, and made Gerasimov fully responsible for the outcome of the campaign.

“The increase in the level of leadership of the special military operation is connected with the expansion in the scale of tasks … the need to organise closer contact between different branches of the armed forces, and improve the quality … and effectiveness of the management of Russian forces,” a ministry statement said.

After only three months on the post, Surovikin was demoted, and he now serves as Gerasimov’s deputy alongside two other generals, Oleg Salyukov and Alexey Kim.

Dmitry Trenin, a political analyst based in Moscow, said the move was made to “streamline the chain of command in the Ukraine operation”.

“The appointment of Gerasimov means the importance of the operation has grown and the scope of the operation may expand beyond what we see today. That is very significant,” Trenin told Al Jazeera.

“The war is getting bigger, more dangerous, and I think this is above the level of a field commander. This is now in the hands of the overall commander of the Russian armed forces.”

Russian pro-war commentators were not impressed.

“The sum does not change just by changing the places of its parts,” wrote one prominent military blogger who posts on the Telegram messaging app under the name of Rybar.

He said Surovikin, a veteran of Russian campaigns in Chechnya and Syria, was being made the fall guy for a series of recent Russian military debacles, including a Ukrainian attack on a Russian barracks in the town of Makiivka that killed at least 89 Russian soldiers, including conscripts, during the New Year period.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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