Behind the scenes, as the spotlight falls on Volodymyr Zelensky, the military leadership orchestrates the war effort, handles logistics, and ensures that Ukrainians stay one step ahead of the invaders. If the Russians are now on the defensive, something unthinkable in February, they are making good use of the flow of NATO arms, thanks to Generals Valerii Zaluzhnyi and Oleksandr Syrskyi, the brains of Ukraine’s armed forces. Zelensky’s inflammatory speeches helped reach the troops. Little known outside Ukraine, these generals have become icons for their fellow citizens since the invasion was stopped. Zalushny’s popularity as the commander-in-chief of the armed forces has fueled some jealousy in the president’s inner circle, as well as rumors that tensions have arisen with the army’s No. 2, Chief of Staff Chirsky.
Zelensky’s experience may have prepared him to lovingly address nations on camera. But the Ukrainian is lucky to have such senior military leaders to trust. One of them, Zaluzhnyi, was part of the first generation of officers to be trained after the fall of the Soviet Union, especially detached from the old Soviet doctrines of war. Chirsky, on the other hand, has the advantage of knowing the enemy well, having been born in Russia and studied at the elite School of Combined Arms Command in Moscow, which has been described as a kind of Soviet West Point.
Before Christmas, when Zelensky visited Joe Biden in Washington, the two wrote a list of gifts he would take with him, fearing that Vladimir Putin’s regime would use the winter to build a new army. Between late January and early March against Ukraine, south, east or north of the border with Belarus, similar to what was seen last February.
“We did all the calculations, how many tanks, artillery, etc., we need,” Zalushny explained in a rare interview with the Economist last week. Russia’s largesse emphasizes that it supports it in a long-term conflict. “That’s why I have no doubt that during the Second World War, somewhere beyond the Urals, they are preparing new resources,” he guaranteed. If the Russians attack Kiev, Kharkiv, and Kherson first, they have accumulated resources for three and a half or four years, and, according to the general estimate, this time will not be capable of destruction.
Even if Putin “puts more than a million men into the army to throw bodies like Zhukov, it won’t give him the results he wants,” Zalushny assured, referring to Stalin’s favorite general who turned the tide against the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. However, “bombs are being made, not very well, but still”, he added. And so far the battles of this war have been won by the side that can get ammunition to its troops the fastest, Chirsky added to the British newspaper. This general, responsible for the defense of Kiev and the counteroffensive south-east of Kharkiv, had been in the lead from the start, urging caution even though Russian military performance had been surprisingly disastrous. “The Russians are not stupid,” assured this former Soviet cadet. “They are not weak. He who underestimates them is headed for failure.
The 48-year-old Zalushny’s work at the Odessa Institute for Land Forces from western Ukraine began in June 2014, when the war began, when he took charge of part of the front line in Donetsk. He found himself managing an army in disarray, “literally in ruins,” as described by then-Chief-of-Chief Viktor Mushenko, quoted in a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace report. After years of Viktor Yanukovych’s pro-Russian regime was so corrupt and the loyalty of many officers questionable, 70% of the Ukrainian army stationed in Crimea went to the Kremlin when the peninsula was annexed.
Assigned as deputy commander of Division C in northern Donetsk, including Pakmut, Zaluzhnyi’s job was to take younger officers in their early twenties and teach them how to lead mostly older, part-time military recruits. . “They, with their life and blood, gave us what we have,” the general recalled last year, as quoted by the Ukrainian BBC. “They stopped the enemy. Now we’re in our position… that’s their merit,” he saluted. The fallback of these troops in the Donbass, the backbone of the army that resisted the invasion in February, will be crucial in protecting Russian troops and preventing the Kremlin from throwing everything it has in its offensive against Kiev. .
The advantage of the degraded state of the Ukrainian armed forces was that it almost forced them to start abandoning Soviet command principles and approaching the NATO model based on discipline and obedience to the chain of command. Junior Officers. In contrast to the line followed by Russian generals such as Sergei Surovykin, the current commander of Kremlin forces in Ukraine.
“With all due respect Mr. Surovikin”, Zalushny noted in his interview with The Economist. “If you look at him, he is a typical Petrovite general from the time of Peter the Great,” he emphasized. “You look at him and realize that either you complete the mission or you f*****. We realized a long time ago that this will not work,” said the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
Amazing success While Chirsky was preparing the defense of Kiev, he was well aware that there were many schoolmates on the other side of the barrier. Born 57 years ago in the Soviet Union, 200km west of Moscow, he lived in Ukraine in the 1980s, but not because he suspected Putin would launch an offensive in his neighbour. Against the Ukrainian capital. It seemed crazy to him that the Kremlin would expose its forces to the horrors of urban warfare to capture a city of nearly three million people.
“Honestly, I couldn’t even imagine,” Chirsky, who led the 2015 assault on Debaltsev in one of the fiercest battles of the Donbass war and was put in charge of all operations against the separatists in 2017, told the Washington Post. He was put in charge of preparing contingency plans for a Russian attack on the capital, even though he found it unlikely. “It seemed to me that if active hostilities began, they would begin in the east, within or within the boundaries of the Donetsk or Luhansk regions.”
There, Sirsky got it wrong, but the plans he produced were surprisingly successful. Knowing Russian tactics, he assumed they would advance along two or three highways toward key government facilities in the capital. Therefore, it established two defensive rings, one in the suburbs and the other in the center of the city, with generals in charge of each sector, in a clear chain of command, and making decisions autonomously without consulting anyone. In the first moments of the invasion, when Russian cyberattacks disabled satellites used by the Ukrainian military, they lost communications at a time when Zelenskiy was believed to be on the run. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian president showed himself to the world, asking the Americans for “ammunition, not a ride.” However, the structure erected by Chirsky survived in the defense of the capital.
A few months later, in the summer, when the tide of battle turned, it was this general who personally led the counteroffensive in southeastern Kharkiv and was credited with finding this hole in the Russian front line. He would use the 72nd Mechanized Brigade, which he already commanded in the defense of Kiev, as a spearhead.
In this counterattack he was able to take in a few days Kubiansk and Isium, two places essential for Russian supplies. The general was surprised at the speed with which the Russians ran in panic. But he couldn’t take advantage of it as much as he wanted because he didn’t get enough reinforcements, he admitted to the Economist. “We are always short of troops. “We’ve had to fight this war with reserves practically all the time,” he lamented. Additionally, Russian commanders forced forward conscripts enlisted in Putin’s partial military deployment, causing their forces to retreat in some places. The lesson he took from this was that, despite the skepticism of some Western analysts, ongoing recruitment in Russia A few months from now, the new army prepared by the Kremlin could have a huge impact when it is launched on the battlefield.
“Hardcore explorer. Extreme communicator. Professional writer. General music practitioner. Prone to fits of apathy.”