The general has not lasted three months Sergei Surovikin commanding the Russian Armed Forces in Ukraine. The nicknames of “the butcher of Syria”, “general Armageddon” or “the bloodthirsty dog of the Kremlin” have not freed him from the fury of Vladimir Putin, who, subjected to media pressure of the ultranationalists for the setbacks of his army on the battlefield, has decided reorganize (once again) the military command.
This same Wednesday, in a strange display of transparency, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced that Surovikin would be replaced by General Valery Gerasimov, government bureaucrat, chief of the General Staff since 2012 and architect of the failed plan to invade kyiv in the first days of the “special military operation”. A change in the military structure that portends also a change of strategy.
In these months, under the command of Surovikin, the Russian troops, practically rickety after numerous military failures, have adopted a defensive position, which has allowed them to rack up losses at a slower rate. Instead of advancing, Kremlin troops have engaged in missile attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. But it’s not even terror strategyaimed at harassing the civilian population, has managed to to break the resistance of the Ukrainian forces in the east of the country.
[Disfrazarse con uniformes ucranianos y disparar a traición, la estrategia del Grupo Wagner en Soledar]
Thus, now that winter seems to have frozen the conflict, the Russian president has wanted to take advantage of it to restructure his forces. The goal is for there to becloser contact between the different branches of the army and improve the quality of all types of support and the effectiveness of command and control”, according to a statement. And if Putin wants resurrect your armyrenewed with the 300,000 reservists called up in September, is precisely for resume offensive operations when temperatures begin to rise.
The escalation of the conflict is something that is already contemplated by the Ukrainian forces, who hope a large-scale enemy attack in early spring. “It could happen in February, at best in March and at worst at the end of January,” Valery Zaluzhny, commanding general of the Ukrainian forces, said in an interview with The Economist.
Ukrainian army, 43rd Heavy Artillery Brigade waits in the woods after firing a German Panzerhaubitze 2000 howitzer, as Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues, near Soledar, Ukraine.
However, the incorporation of Gerasimov at the head of the army is not only designed to improve Russia’s military perspective, but also aims to solve a political problem that has a name and surname: Eugeni PrigozhinPutin ally and head of the Wagner Group.
It is no coincidence that the announcement of the new military hierarchy comes just as the russian militia, Independent of the Armed Forces, it claims to have taken “total control” of Soledar, the town in the Donetsk region that has become the main focus of fighting.
[El Grupo Wagner desafía a Putin e intenta tomar el control del ejército del Kremlin en Ucrania]
political motivation
For months Prigozhin has been carrying out an active campaign on social networks aimed at demonstrating the effectiveness of his army as a fighting force opposed to the Armed Forces. This Tuesday, he posted a photograph of his men in the famous salt mines of the city and he emphasized that “only Wagner’s fighters had been fighting there on behalf of Russia.”
A few hours later, the Russian Ministry of Defense contradicted these statements and assured that the fighting continued in Soledar and that the city had not yet fallen. He also made it clear, in what can be interpreted as a rebuke to Prigozhin, that his own troops, those of the Russian army, were fighting there.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei #Shoigu announced a plan to improve #Russia‘s defense industrial base. https://t.co/xfVF5eQ6r7 https://t.co/UOQceFiqKJ
— ISW (@TheStudyofWar) January 12, 2023
In this sense, analysts of the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) argue that it is very likely that the rise of Gerasimov and the demotion of Surovikin, one of Prigozhin’s protégés, it’s a political decision to reaffirm the primacy of the Russian Armed Forces and Defense Ministry over the Wagner Group in the internal struggle for power.
And it is worth remembering that Prigozhin, together with his also ally, the Chechen leader, Ramzan Kadirov, have shown their discontent with the development of the war. In October, after heavy defeats by Russian forces in the north-east and south of the country, he repeatedly called for an intensification of the war and publicly blamed the head of Defense, Sergei Shoiguof failures at the front.
