Zelenskiy removes his top general amid major shake-up in the Ukrainian military

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said Thursday he had ousted his top general in the most significant leadership change since Russia invaded Ukraine nearly two years ago.

Praising General Valery Zaluzhny, the commander who led the country's war effort for two years, Mr Zelenskiy said “urgent changes” were needed to ensure victory.

“From today, a new management team will take over the leadership of Ukraine's armed forces,” Mr. Zelensky said in an evening address to the nation, adding that he had met General Zaluzhny and thanked him for his services.

General Zaluzhny will be replaced by General Oleksandr Syrsky, the head of Ukraine's ground forces, the president said.

The unrest comes at a precarious time for Ukraine in the war, amid intensifying Russian attacks, skepticism in the United States about providing aid to Kiev and tensions between Ukraine's civilian and military leadership. It remained unclear whether General Zaluzhny, who is very popular in the Ukrainian military and society, had resigned or been dismissed from his position.

General Zaluzhny led Ukraine's war effort from its initial, successful defense against Russian attack through the past year of bloody, inconclusive fighting along a front that has barely moved but where Ukrainian soldiers are once again outmanned and outgunned.

Last week, rumors began circulating online in Ukraine that 50-year-old General Zaluzhny had been fired, prompting the president's office to issue a denial. A Ukrainian lawmaker said the two men met on January 29, but the fate of the country's top military commander had not yet been decided.

Two Ukrainian officials said Zelensky's government had planned all along to fire the general, but only briefly backed down after the news leaked and sparked opposition from some Ukrainian political leaders and soldiers.

Friction between the president and the general had been simmering since the beginning of the war in a rivalry that, amid military successes, remained largely hidden from the public. The schism deepened last fall, when General Zaluzhny published an essay declaring the battle a stalemate, contradicting Mr. Zelensky's continued, hopeful claims of progress.

That breach followed a Ukrainian counter-offensive, backed by billions of dollars in Western arms donations, that failed to achieve a breakthrough despite costing thousands of Ukrainian casualties.

More recently, the two publicly disagreed over a Ukrainian plan to call up as many as half a million troops to supplement the army to counter Russia's renewed ground attacks in the eastern Donbas region. Although Ukrainians still overwhelmingly support the fight against the large-scale Russian invasion, the mobilization is expected to be unpopular. Many men who planned to volunteer have already done so.

Ukrainian forces have been on the defensive in recent weeks as Russia launched fierce attacks along the front line. Kiev got a boost to its war effort last week when the European Union approved a $54 billion aid package that will help avert a short-term Ukrainian financial crisis.

But lawmakers in Washington failed this week to strike a deal that would provide another $60 billion in aid to Ukraine, aid that Ukrainian officials and military analysts see as crucial to Kiev's war effort. Senate Republicans on Wednesday blocked a measure that would have provided funding, leading Democrats to propose an alternative bill that was debated Thursday.

As speculation about the military commander's fate reached a fever pitch, General Zaluzhny maintained his usual low public profile. He paid tribute to a touchstone in Ukraine's military history, praising a small group of Ukrainian soldiers who in 1918 repulsed a much larger Russian invasion force that marched on Kiev, the capital. -sacrifice of the young generation in the fight against the aggressor.”

“We thank everyone who is currently defending the state, its independence and future,” he said. He has not made any public comments in the past two weeks.

When the war with Russia began in 2014, General Zaluzhny, who was educated at a Soviet cadet school in Odessa but served most of his career in the Ukrainian army after independence, was appointed deputy commander of the troops fighting along a violent part of the front line near the border with Russia. eastern cities of Debaltseve and Bakhmut, where he gained experience leading troops in battle.

Mr Zelensky appointed General Zaluzhny commander of the army general staff in 2021, before the Russian invasion. Military analysts have credited the general with preparing the army in the weeks and days before the attack by flying jets to reserve airfields and moving troops from barracks that were then bombed.

Mr. Zelensky's frustration with his top general emerged in the public eye in early November, after General Zaluzhny published his essay calling the war a “stalemate.” The Ukrainian president suggested the comment was helpful to the Russians, a striking rebuke.

Around the same time, the president's office replaced one of the deputies of General Zaluzhny, the head of the special operations forces, without providing any explanation. It also fired the head of Ukraine's medical forces.

Criticism of General Zaluzhny reached a new level in late November, when Mariana Bezuhla, a lawmaker and former member of Mr. Zelensky's political party, appeared to call for the commander's departure, accusing him of failing to carefully plan for the next phase of the war. .

“If the military leadership cannot present any plan for 2024, and all their proposals for mobilization boil down to the fact that more people are needed,” Ms. Bezuhla said. wrote on Facebook“then such leadership should leave.”

Opinion polls had consistently ranked the president and the general as the most trusted figures in Ukraine during the war. Throughout the fall, Mr. Zelensky's ratings had fallen, while General Zaluzhny had maintained consistently high levels of support.

General Zaluzhny's high reputation among the Ukrainian public led to speculation that he could be a potential challenger to Zelensky in future elections, prompting some in the country to view them as political rivals.

The military leader was nicknamed the 'Iron General' for his decisive leadership of the army when Russian troops began crossing the border en masse towards Ukraine's major cities last year. Under his command, Ukrainian troops stopped Russian forces at the door of the capital and forced them to withdraw.

A few months later, Ukrainian troops stormed through Russian positions in a counter-offensive that recaptured thousands of square kilometers of northeastern territory, including dozens of cities.

But the general was also saddled with the failure of the Ukrainian counteroffensive in the south this summer — a boost that many in Ukraine and the West had hoped could split Russian forces and demonstrate that Ukraine was making steady gains in the war . The operation failed to break through the formidable Russian defense lines, with Ukrainian forces advancing only a few kilometers, at a bloody cost to both sides.

In his November essay, General Zaluzhny said that unless Ukraine obtained more advanced weapons and technology, the country would become embroiled in a long war in which Russia would have the upper hand.

Constant Méheut , Marc Santora and Maria Varenikova contributed reporting from Kiev, Ukraine.