President Volodymyr Zelensky’s dismissal of the Ukrainian army chief, General Valery Zaluzhny, is a colossal political gamble for Zelensky and seems to indicate an increasing mood of desperation in Kyiv. The background to this move lies in the failure of last year’s Ukrainian offensive, and the attempts both to shift blame and to draw up a new strategy that could promise Ukraine future victory.

The Ukrainian defeat last year led to a rather discreditable blame game in Washington, with the U.S. military, and some Ukrainians, suggesting that if Zaluzhny had taken their (supposed) advice and concentrated his forces to attack on a narrow front (rather than attacking in several places simultaneously), the Ukrainians could have broken through.

This is a rather odd argument, because it was just such attacks on narrow fronts that the Russian army tried several times immediately following the invasion, and that led to repeated disasters. It ignores the fact that just as U.S. satellite intelligence allowed the Ukrainians to identify local Russian concentrations and to concentrate in turn, so Russian satellite intelligence does the same when it is the Ukrainians attacking.

The truth is that by the summer of 2023 the Ukrainian army simply did not have the superiority in manpower and firepower that would have allowed it to break through heavily fortified lines manned by a numerous and well-armed enemy. To have succeeded against these odds would have been a quite exceptionally unusual event in military history. Nor is there any significant prospect that the Ukrainians will be able to succeed in the future; for even if they receive new Western weaponry over the next year, Russia will be using the year still further to fortify its defensive lines

Zelensky’s dismissal of Zaluzhny also reflects the fact that the general has long been seen as Zelensky’s most dangerous future political rival, given his prestige in the army and popularity among the Ukrainian people. We do not know how Zaluzhny will react to his dismissal. Perhaps he has made some deal with Zelensky.

The risks for the president are however obvious. Although Zaluzhny’s replacement, General Oleksandr Syrsky, also enjoys considerable prestige as the defender of Kyiv at the start of the war, he has been blamed by many Ukrainian soldiers for bowing to political pressure and throwing away Ukrainian lives in what was seen as an unnecessary and doomed attempt to hold the town of Bakhmut last year. There is also considerable resentment among the soldiers due to their impression that not only Zaluzhny, but the military in general are being scapegoated for last year’s failure.

Zelensky is not helped by the fact that after the Ukrainian defeat, he publicly rebuked and contradicted Zaluzhny for stating that the war had reached a stalemate and that Ukraine would now have to go onto the defensive — only then to accept Zaluzhny’s position when military reality (and advice from Washington) became overwhelming.

It is also not clear that General Syrsky’s appointment will change, or improve another critical factor that brought the tension between Zelensky and Zaluzhny to a head: conscription. A striking lesson of this war is that victory depends on a combination of the most recent weaponry with large numbers of fighting soldiers. In 2022, Russian defeats were largely due to the fact that they invaded with too few troops. The spectacular Ukrainian success in Kharkiv in September 2022 owed much to the fact that on that front they considerably outnumbered the Russians.

Today, however, Ukraine is running out of men. Russia has more than four times Ukraine’s population, and is conscripting more of them, as well as radically improving its tactics and weaponry. The Ukrainian army has been drained by huge casualties and growing unwillingness of the population to serve. The average age of Ukrainian soldiers is now 43 — far too old for full military effectiveness.

As a result, in recent months General Zaluzhny became more and more insistent on the need greatly to extend and toughen conscription. This was backed by the soldiers, and became entwined........

© Common Dreams