24hoursworld

General Armageddon has been bombed out: Putin is now sending his best man to Ukraine

General Armageddon has been bombed out: Putin is now sending his best man to Ukraine

Valeri Gerasimov was considered a military genius, now he is supposed to lead Russia to victory in Ukraine. The problem: Gerasimov is also responsible for the disastrous invasion plan.

General Sergey Surovikin, known as General Armageddon for the destruction of Aleppo in 2016, has been replaced as commander of Russian forces in Ukraine by General Valery Gerasimov. Gerasimov, the chief of staff of the armed forces, is taking personal command of the armed forces in Ukraine, the Russian Defense Ministry posted on Telegram. Only three months Surovikin remained in office. The peculiarity of the change of guard: Surovikin remains in Ukraine, he becomes the second man behind Gerasimov. Other deputies are Oleg Salyukov and Alexei Kim.

Failure of the drone offensive

Surovikin’s replacement is related to two developments. Surovikin had tried not to win the war through costly ground operations, but sought the decision in an air offensive. Long-range weapons – that is, drones, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles – were designed to shut down Ukraine’s power supply. A true winter blackout would have paralyzed free Ukraine’s industrial production and made survival in the cities impossible.

Surovikin could not achieve this strategic war aim. The power grid is damaged, but the outages were only temporary. So far it has always been possible to mend the network again. The destructive effect of the individual impacts is low if you compare them with a combat bomber or even carpet bombing. In addition, most of the drones are shot down by the Ukrainian air defense. Russia has also failed to significantly weaken or eliminate its air defenses. That would have happened if masses of cheap drones had caused anti-aircraft defenses to give up their positions and then be knocked out by high-tech weapons. In fact, Kiev’s air defenses are being strengthened by other systems from the West.

Defensive strategy of Surovikin

At the same time, Surovikin’s “successes” are viewed with suspicion in the Kremlin. Allegedly against Putin’s resistance, the general pushed through the withdrawal from the Cherson bridgehead. This saved almost 20,000 men from being surrounded. Although the troops had to cross a river without bridges, they suffered few casualties. The retreat was masterful, but it meant a loss of face for Putin. Furthermore, Surovikin played a key role in the rise of the Wagner Group. The two “hot” battle zones on the 1,000-kilometer front are the areas around the cities of Bakhmut and Soledar. There the Wagner men bear the brunt of the fighting. The private army now operates with the strength of a regular army corps. The troops are largely removed from the hierarchy of the regular army and with them, alongside Kadyrov’s Chechen fighters, a second autonomous military formation has emerged.

Rivalry with the Wagner group

In fact, the Wagner troops do not operate alone, for example they are accompanied by airborne troops. But their rise and achievements humiliate the regular army. Both the Wagner Group and the Chechens are better positioned than Putin’s army for the war in the urban areas of Ukraine. This is based on heavily armed motorized units, whose fighting power is based on tanks and armored personnel carriers. These weapons are worn out by fighting and are of little use in the chaos of a fight for houses and crossroads. The Wagner Group, on the other hand, is based on light infantry – soldiers used to fighting on foot and in improvised conditions.

General Gerasimov will try to restore the primacy of the regular military and downgrade the position of Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigohzin. It is questionable, however, whether he will succeed. As chief of staff, Gerasimov is responsible for Ukraine’s failed invasion plan. Previously, he was considered a military mastermind, a strategist who understood the nature of future wars far better than his western counterparts. His invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 will go down in history as an example of an utterly failed operation – failed through a mixture of incompetence, pride and blatant misjudgment of the enemy.

The Tasks of Gerasimov

There are enough tasks waiting for him. It should be clear to the Russians by now that they will not be able to decide the war with a drone offensive. On the ground, apart from the hot spots in Donbass, Surovikin pursued a defensive strategy. He wanted to use the winter to refresh the worn-out troops, integrate the reservists, and establish deep defensive lines in the process. Basically it wasn’t wrong. Everyday war and, above all, attacks against a well-prepared opponent would weaken Ukraine. Kyiv would have suffered substantial losses in men and equipment over the winter. Above all, the dwindling number of battle tanks and armored personnel carriers would have deprived Kyiv of the ability to recapture.

But with the announcement of further arms deliveries from the West, this strategy is becoming fragile. Now the Kremlin has to fear that Kyiv will receive infantry fighting vehicles and main battle tanks of Western design over the winter and use them to set up and train new motorized and armored troops that can go on offensives in the spring.

Merely waiting is therefore no longer an option. Gerasimov has shown in the past that he is a military thinker. Russia needs fresh ideas to be able to go on the offensive again despite dwindling forces on the ground. But the Russian military has had problems at every level of leadership over the past year. The incompetence and inability to control unforeseen challenges will not go away with a change in leadership, even if a military genius took the executive chair.

What looks like a change of power actually changes little. As chief of staff and a man close to Putin, Gerasimov was already in a higher position. In addition, the Kremlin is said to have a tendency to intervene directly in operational planning from Moscow. The British Ministry of Defense commented that the reorganization would not please “much of the Russian ultra-nationalist and military blogger community, which increasingly blames Gerasimov for the poor conduct of the war”. Gerasimov’s involvement in the theater of war “is an indicator of the increasing seriousness of the situation Russia is facing and a clear admission that the campaign is falling short of Russia’s strategic goals”.

But now “Putin’s best man” is on the ground, directing operations himself rather than interfering in someone else’s work. In addition, Gerasimov has a direct line to the leadership in the Kremlin. And he will be able to draw on the entire Russian military apparatus outside of Ukraine on a completely different scale than a Surovik. The decisive role in the coming months will be played by the armaments technocrats. Despite sanctions, they have to deliver large quantities of heavy equipment to the troops. Only then will Gerasimov be able to replenish his forces in Ukraine. And only with the right equipment can Russia mobilize more soldiers to gain numerical superiority at the front.

Source: Stern

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Latest Posts