January 12, 2023:
Welcome to the Russia-Ukraine War Briefing, your guide to the latest news and analysis about the conflict. |
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Putin’s military reshuffle |
Russia has shaken up its military command in Ukraine, demoting its top commander after just three months in the job. |
The change reflects the difficulty that Russia finds itself in: Gen. Sergei Surovikin, who has largely failed to achieve any progress on the battlefield, will be replaced by Gen. Valery Gerasimov, who was one of the key architects of Moscow’s ill-fated invasion in the first place. |
Surovikin, who was appointed in October after the disastrous rout of Russian forces in the Kharkiv region, is now one of Gerasimov’s three deputies, according to a statement released today by the Russian Defense Ministry. Gerasimov has served as Russia’s chief of general staff for over a decade. |
“They have taken someone who is competent and replaced him with someone who is incompetent, but who has been there a long time and who has shown that he is loyal,” said Dara Massicot, senior policy researcher at the RAND Corporation in Washington. “Whatever is happening in Moscow, it is out of touch with what is happening on the ground in Ukraine.” |
The shake-up came after announcements this week of new deliveries of weapons from the West, which could strengthen Ukraine’s capabilities on the battlefield. |
The British Defence Ministry said in an intelligence update that Gerasimov’s appointment was “a significant development” in President Vladimir Putin’s approach to the war and “a clear acknowledgment that the campaign is falling short of Russia’s strategic goals.” |
Analysts said the replacement of Surovikin with a Kremlin apparatchik like Gerasimov showed that Putin remained focused on projecting the appearance of stability. The announcement was met with derision from some nationalist Russian military bloggers, who have compared the reshuffle to a game of musical chairs among Moscow’s ineffectual military old guard. |
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After his appointment in October, Surovikin launched waves of missile and drone attacks intended to cripple Ukraine’s energy grid, leaving civilians without power and heat as winter set in. He had previously commanded Russian forces in Syria where he was known for bombing campaigns that targeted civilians. |
During his three months in command, the Russian military was forced onto the defensive in the south. Surovikin oversaw a retreat from the city of Kherson after heavy shelling by advancing Ukrainian forces made the Russian position there untenable. |
News of the shake-up came as intense fighting continued in the eastern town of Soledar. |
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the paramilitary Wagner Group of mercenaries, who make up a large part of the Russian force battling in Soledar, maintained in a Telegram post yesterday that his forces had seized control of the city, though he added that fighting was continuing. |
Ukraine said its forces were still defending Soledar. |
A Russian victory in Soledar, a salt-mining town north of Bakhmut, would be Russia’s first tangible gain in the war since July, when its troops took control of Sieverodonetsk and Lysychansk in the Donbas. It would give Russian forces a springboard to press on toward Bakhmut, a ruined city that lies only 10 miles away and is now at the center of the war. |
But military experts say that taking Soledar would not signal that Bakhmut is about to fall. The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based research group, estimates that even if Russia captured Soledar, Ukraine could defend and resupply soldiers in Bakhmut. |
