Replacing Ukraine’s popular army chief is big gamble for Zelensky

KYIV: The sweeping military shakeup that replaced Ukraine’s popular army chief this week throws up big political and military risks for President Volodymyr Zelensky as the war with Russia heads towards its third year.

Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, who led Ukraine’s war effort through the darkest days of the full-scale invasion, was replaced on Thursday by ground forces commander Oleksandr Syrskyi, who is expected to present a new military team in the coming days.

The shakeup comes as Kyiv faces ammunition shortages and uncertainty over the future of U.S. military aid, which has been on hold for months due to Republican opposition, even as Russian forces begin to gain the upper hand on the battlefield.

“This is a risky decision, first of all, because the changes that are to take place are happening in an extremely complex environment and this may complicate the management of the troops,” Serhiy Zgurets, director of the Kyiv-based Defence Express consultancy, told Reuters.

Though Syrskyi and Zaluzhnyi have the same approaches, the new chief’s top military team has not been disclosed in full, so there could be a disruption in the management of troops in the short-term, Zgurets said.

That sense of uncertainty comes as Russian troops are tightening their grip around the embattled town of Avdiivka where Ukrainian troops are dug in. Elsewhere on the eastern front, Moscow’s troops are building offensive pressure.

Ukraine has also been struggling to overhaul how it mobilises civilians into the army as it tries to regenerate manpower after its much-vaunted counteroffensive proved unable to break through Russian lines last year.