Ukraine has a new military commander, but the problems have not changed

Russian forces razed the already battered city of Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine and sent waves of assault units to overwhelm overwhelmed Ukrainian forces. After months of brutal fighting, the Russian army is threatening to cut off a vital supply line to the city, which could make further defense impossible.

As General Oleksandr Syrsky assumes his role as Ukraine's top military commander – following a broad shake-up of the army leadership on Thursday – he could soon be confronted again with the grim analysis that has characterized the two-year war: when costs of defending territory outweigh any benefit gained from inflicting pain on the enemy?

It's a bloody equation that General Syrsky has had to try many times as commander of ground forces in eastern Ukraine, and it's one that critics — including U.S. military officials — say he hasn't always got right, especially in the battle for Bakmut.

Assessing that strategy will be only part of the “renewal” that President Volodymyr Zelensky said was necessary when he fired his commanding general Valery Zaluzhny on Thursday and appointed General Syrsky to replace him. Mr. Zelensky also named five generals and two colonels he plans to promote as part of the major overhaul.

Ukraine's military challenges extend far beyond any single battle. US aid, which is urgently needed, remains in doubt. The Ukrainian troops are exhausted and lack weapons and ammunition. Air defense systems, which are crucial for protecting civilians from Russian missiles, are steadily being depleted by repeated bombings.

U.S. officials believe that without replenishment, Ukraine has enough air defenses to hold out until next month.

And Russian President Vladimir V. Putin delivered a blunt message in an interview with Tucker Carlson on Thursday evening, saying that Ukraine would not regain territory and that it was time to make a deal.

Western military analysts have suggested that 2024 will be a year of reconstruction for Ukraine, and that General Syrsky will have to figure out how best to deploy soldiers to counter Russian offensives while generating new and effective forces. But before Ukrainian leaders can think of regaining ground, they must first hold on to what they have – and preventing Russian advances is complicated by a serious shortage of soldiers and ammunition.

Western officials and military experts have warned that without U.S. help, a gradual collapse along the front is a real possibility later this year.

It would take at least a few more months for the lack of renewed aid to have a widespread impact, they say. But without that, they add, it is difficult to imagine how Ukraine will be able to maintain its current positions on the battlefield.

Next month, Ukraine could struggle to mount local counterattacks, and by early summer the Ukrainian military could struggle to fend off Russian attacks, officials and analysts say.

However, officials also believe that Russia would struggle to quickly build enough capacity to carry out a major offensive in eastern Ukraine. Instead, Russian forces would most likely move forward in a clumsy, disjointed manner, but with a high threshold for casualties among their own forces.

On Friday, the Kremlin dismissed the Ukrainian leadership change as unimportant. “We do not believe that this is a factor that can change the course of the special military operation,” Putin's spokesman Dmitry S. Peskov told journalists, using Moscow's words before the war. “It will continue until all its goals are achieved.”

Yet Ukraine has managed to avert doomsday scenarios in the past, most notably when it expelled Russian troops from Kiev in the early months of the war.

In his first public comments since his appointment, General Syrsky said Friday that his immediate priority would be “the fastest and most rational distribution and delivery of everything necessary for combat units” to counter Russian attacks.

He pledged to put the “lives and health” of troops first in battlefield decisions, and to work to maintain “a balance between fulfilling combat missions and recovering units.”

With his comments, General Syrsky may have been responding to critics who say he has been too willing to sacrifice soldiers to achieve questionable military goals.

Announcing the overhaul on Thursday, Mr Zelensky also spoke of the need to meet the needs of soldiers in the cauldron of battle. Although there are almost a million people in the military, Mr. Zelensky said, “the majority of them have not felt the front line in the same way as the minority who are actually in the front and actually fighting.”

“What this means is that we especially need a different approach to rotations,” he said. “A different approach to frontline management. A different approach to mobilization and recruitment. All this will give the soldier more respect. And restore clarity about the actions in the war.”

But Mr. Zelensky provided few details about how the overhauled leadership would achieve its goals, and he did not explain where the previous commander's team had fallen short.

Zelensky's critics say he has avoided making politically unpopular decisions and has failed to address the challenges associated with efforts to overhaul and revitalize the mobilization process.

General Syrsky is a divisive figure within the military and is seen by some as too close to the Zelensky team to challenge misguided political decisions.

But he is intimately familiar with the often byzantine bureaucracy of the Ukrainian armed forces, and he participated in most of the major command decisions during the war.

He will now have to expand his scope from the bloody battles in eastern Ukraine to a vast war fought on land, in the air and at sea. He has long experience commanding conventional forces, but unconventional warfare will play an increasingly important role as Ukraine tries to make up for its disadvantages by waging an asymmetric campaign – including attacks in Russia.

In addition to tactical and strategic decisions, General Syrsky must also maintain troop morale during one of the most difficult moments of the war. This includes winning over soldiers who liked and respected his predecessor, General Zaluzhny.

General Zaluzhny is widely regarded as a heroic figure who helped save his country in its darkest hours and earned a reputation for compassion even as he made difficult choices. On Friday, Mr Zelensky awarded the general the title of Hero of Ukraine.

Oleksandr, a 27-year-old soldier who fought on the frontlines and who, like others in this article, asked to be identified only by his first name in accordance with military policy, said: “Being in the million-strong army and There may be problems, countless problems, but here we are talking about trust.”

“General Zaluzhny has – and continues to have – unquestionable authority and trust from both the military and society,” Oleksandr added. “The president has not clearly explained to society the reasons for General Zaluzhny's resignation.”

Other soldiers, however, seemed to be following the change closely. Viy, a 43-year-old battalion commander, said that while Generals Zaluzhny and Syrsky had different management styles, results were all that mattered.

“In the big picture, when you work at a very high pace all the time for two years of war, especially for military personnel, you don't pay much attention to the high power groups,” Viy said.

Victor, a 45-year-old sniper, said the decision did not come as a surprise given the very public tensions between Mr. Zelensky and General Zaluzhny.

“We are soldiers, and we cannot afford to fall into the depression and panic that is now partly sweeping through the civilians,” Victor said.

He also expressed concern that the Russians would try to exploit the change, but he said soldiers had little time to think about political machinations.

High-level strategy is important, he added, but the war is being fought by “ordinary guys in trenches and cities.”

“Skilled commanders at the company and battalion levels are the ones who win the war,” he noted. “Whether Syrsky or someone else comes, they'll fight either way. You can't build an army around one person.”

Reporting was contributed by Maria VarenikovaLiubov Sholudko and Oleksandr Sushko from Kiev; Julian E Barnes from Washington; And Ivan Nechepurenko from Tbilisi, Georgia.