Russian Army Chief of Staff Valery Gerasimov resumes operations in Ukraine

by time news

The piloting of “special military operation” Russia in Ukraine is experiencing new upheavals. Only three months after his appointment as sole commander of maneuvers in the field, General Sergei Surovikin was dismissed from this position on Wednesday 11 January. According to the press release from the Ministry of Defense, he was replaced by Valéri Guerassimov, who will combine this position with that of Chief of Staff of the Russian army, which he has held since 2012. Sergueï Surovikine is demoted to the rank of deputy, alongside generals Oleg Salioukov and Alexei Kim.

This change of direction is not the first since the outbreak of the offensive in Ukraine on February 24, 2022. But it is remarkable in more ways than one – and not only because the new chief of operations, reputed to be the one of the Hybrid War theorists, is well known.

Sergei Surovikin was the first commander of the forces deployed in Ukraine to benefit from expanded powers, when he was appointed in October 2022, to try to resolve the coordination problems observed on the ground. Then, it was the Kremlin itself which had chosen, in an unusual way, to publicize this figure. State propaganda had thus transformed the arrival of this “General Armageddon” into a major event, likely to change the situation after the successful Ukrainian military counter-offensives of this summer.

Surrender of Kherson

The sudden eviction of this high-ranking officer took aback in Russia itself, even in circles close to power who were unconvinced by the army’s cryptic press release which explains these movements by “a broadening of the scope of the missions to be accomplished and the need to lead closer interaction between the components of the armed forces”. The specialized Telegram channel Rybar, well informed but under strict control of the authorities, does not hesitate to mention the results “contestable” of General Surovikin. The analysis coincides with that of British intelligence, which in its daily public report considers that his departure constitutes a « reconnaissance » Russian chess.

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The arrival of the general, on October 8, 2022, went hand in hand with the launch of a massive bombing campaign on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure. Intended to push Ukrainian society to the limit and bring it to capitulation, this strategy did not yield the expected results. Surovikin’s mission will also remain as that of the withdrawal of Russian troops from Kherson, the first taken after the start of the offensive in February 2022, and which Moscow considers one of its regional capitals. Then there was the Ukrainian strike on Makiivka, in the Donbass, which killed, on the evening of December 31, dozens, even hundreds of mobilized Russian soldiers – the Ministry of Defense sticks to an official assessment of 89 dead.

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