The Kremlin late Saturday appointed a new general to lead its operations in Ukraine, according to media reports, while foreign intelligence agencies said that mounting casualties have forced Moscow’s military leaders to call back soldiers who have been discharged over the past decade.
The two developments offer the clearest indication to date that Russian President Vladimir Putin and his deputies recognize that their military campaign in Ukraine so far has been a failure. Russian troops last week abandoned their mission to capture the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv and instead began to regroup in preparation for a major assault on eastern Ukraine, particularly the disputed Donbas region.
Russian Gen. Aleksandr V. Dvornikov will oversee the new battle plan, according to the BBC, which first reported the change in Russian leadership. The 60-year-old general commanded Russian troops in Syria, earning the nickname “the butcher of Syria” because of the ruthless tactics he employed as part of Moscow’s effort to prop up Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s regime in its war with rebels.
Gen. Dvornikov’s appointment indicates growing frustration inside the Kremlin with Russia‘s battlefield failures in Ukraine. Russia has lost thousands of personnel and hundreds of tanks over the past six weeks, and its failure to take Kyiv or any other major city has proved to be an embarrassment for a military considered to be among the world’s best.
With casualties mounting, Moscow has even resorted to calling back troops who have been discharged from duty since 2012, the British Ministry of Defense said Sunday in its daily assessment of the war in Ukraine. British officials also said Russia is trying to recruit fresh troops from Transnistria, an unrecognized breakaway territory in Moldova.
U.S. officials said Russia‘s leadership change underscores just how badly the Ukrainian invasion has played out for Mr. Putin. But they also warned that Gen. Dvornikov’s appointment virtually assures even more Russian brutality against Ukrainian civilians.
“First, no appointment of any general can erase the fact that Russia has already faced strategic failure in Ukraine,” White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. “They thought they were going to be able to conquer the capital city and take other major cities with little resistance, that they’d in fact be welcomed with open arms.”
Having been proven wrong, Russia is likely to double down on a savage, indiscriminate approach to war, Mr. Sullivan said.
“This particular general has a resume that includes brutality against civilians in other theaters, in Syria, and we can expect more of the same in this theater,” he said. “This general will just be another author of crimes and brutality against Ukrainian civilians and the United States … is determined to do all we can to support the Ukrainians as they resist him, as they resist the forces he commands.”