Kyiv, Ukraine – Rumours and allegations have swirled in latest weeks over the dismissal of Valerii Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s military chief.
Final week, a number of lawmakers and insiders claimed the taciturn and immensely well-liked 50-year-old four-star basic was dismissed and set to guide Ukraine’s Nationwide Safety and Defence Council.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy determined to fireplace him in early December after Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin visited Kyiv, the Ukrainska Pravda newspaper reported, citing an unnamed supply.
However on Monday, Defence Minister Rustem Umerov mentioned: “This is not true.”
Although the ministry doesn’t maintain sway over Zaluzhny, within the case of a possible firing, it must submit a “recommendation” for his dismissal to Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s nominal commander-in-chief.
“There’s nothing to talk about. There was no dismissal. I have nothing to add,” Zelenskyy’s spokesperson Serhiy Nikiforov mentioned in televised remarks on Monday.
However a number of observers have doubts.
“There was an attempt to convince Zaluzhny to switch to another job voluntarily, on his own. The attempt wasn’t very successful, so the matter has been postponed,” Kyiv-based analyst Volodymyr Fesenko instructed Al Jazeera.
However the dismissal “is a matter of time and circumstances”, he mentioned.
There may be “psychological tension” between Zaluzhny and the president, who stays dissatisfied with the failures of final 12 months’s counterattack, Fesenko mentioned.
Well-liked regardless of counteroffensive failures
A number of counterstrikes in late 2022 liberated nearly half of Russia-occupied areas and warranted the Ukrainian public that the 2023 summer time marketing campaign within the east and south would succeed. However Russia used a lull in hostilities to construct multilayer defence installations alongside the 1,000km-long (621-mile) entrance line and deployed a whole lot of hundreds of newly mobilised servicemen to man them.
Zaluzhny’s months-long counterattack morphed right into a World Conflict I-like trench conflict as his forces gained, misplaced and regained tiny patches of land amid harrowing losses of troopers and Western-supplied weaponry.
Even the failed mutiny and disbandment of the Wagner mercenary group, which spearheaded Russia’s advance, didn’t assist the Ukrainian counterattacks.
The failure was variously blamed on Zaluzhny’s tactical errors and delays within the provide of Western weaponry comparable to fighter jets and missiles.
As Zaluzhny has not provide you with a brand new motion plan for 2024, Zelenskyy has often bypassed him in managing the armed forces, Fesenko mentioned.
However Zaluzhny’s authority among the many high brass and servicemen stays sky excessive.
In early 2022, as Ukrainian politicians have been adamant that Russian President Vladimir Putin was bluffing and wouldn’t dare invade, Zaluzhny, who has headed the armed forces since July 2021, labored laborious to organize.
“In the political sphere, there were different views, but the military with him at the helm tried hard to get ready, and he demonstrated success,” Lieutenant Normal Ihor Romanenko, former deputy chief of Ukraine’s Normal Employees, instructed Al Jazeera.
As soon as a little-known determine, Zaluzhny hardly ever speaks to the press and shuns publicity. He’s by far probably the most trusted individual in wartime Ukraine.
He’s extra well-liked than Zelenskyy – an astronomical 88 % of Ukrainians belief him, a latest ballot discovered, whereas 62 % belief the president.
Seventy-two % mentioned they’re towards his dismissal whereas 2 % would assist it, in accordance with the survey by the Kyiv Worldwide Sociology Institute performed in early December.
However reputation gained’t essentially translate into political success.
Ukraine’s elites and public don’t sometimes view the navy and regulation enforcement businesses as a supply of political and presidential materials.
Ukraine’s second president, Leonid Kuchma, appointed former intelligence chief Evhen Marchuk as prime minister in 1995 however quickly fired him for “trying to form his own political image”.
One other wannabe president, former Inside Minister Yuri Kravchenko, died in 2005 of two gunshots to the pinnacle that have been formally deemed suicide.
Former intelligence chief Ihor Smeshko and ex-Defence Minister Anatoly Hritsenko shaped their very own political events however gained minimal assist of their makes an attempt to run for president.
In Ukraine, the military is “not a political institution with a special vision of development like in Latin America”, Kyiv-based analyst Aleksey Kuschch instructed Al Jazeera.
So ought to Zaluzhny select to go away the navy for politics, he could be a “good sparring partner” for Zelenskyy however wouldn’t be elected president, mentioned Igar Tyshkevich of the Ukrainian Institute for the Future, a suppose tank in Kyiv.
“But it’s almost guaranteed that he would head one of the largest fractions in the Verkhovna Rada,” Ukraine’s decrease home of parliament, Tyshkevich instructed Al Jazeera.
He dismissed considerations that protests would possibly erupt if Zaluzhny is fired.
Media leaks have named two generals who might change Zaluzhny.
One is Kyrylo Budanov, a 38-year-old who led small intelligence teams that landed in annexed Crimea earlier than the conflict and now heads the Essential Directorate of Intelligence within the Ministry of Defence.
His company despatched helicopters to help Ukrainian servicemen preventing within the besieged Azovstal plant in Mariupol in 2022.
It has performed drone assaults on bombers, warships, air defence methods and navy bases deep inside Russia and annexed Crimea.
Budanov’s males have assassinated pro-Russian strongmen and disloyal Ukrainian politicians in separatist-held and Russia-occupied areas.
One other doable alternative for Zaluzhny is Oleksandr Syrsky, a seasoned navy veteran who defended Kyiv in early 2022 and kicked Russian forces out of the jap area of Kharkiv later that 12 months.
If both fills Zaluzhny’s footwear, there may be positive to be bitter public emotions in direction of Zelenskyy, but when an upcoming counteroffensive is profitable, they might “dissolve within months”, Tyshkevich mentioned.