Move holds Valery Gerasimov directly responsible for the fate of the campaign, as Sergey Surovikin, nicknamed “General Armageddon,” is demoted.
Russia ordered its top general to take charge of the invasion of Ukraine in the biggest upheaval to date of its military command structure after months of battlefield defeats.
The Russian Defense Ministry said on Wednesday that Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu had appointed Chief of Staff Valery Gerasimov to be the supreme commander of the armed forces for what Moscow is calling its “military special operation” in Ukraine.
The move not only held Gerasimov directly responsible for the fate of the campaign, but demoted General Sergey Surovikin, who was nicknamed “General Armageddon” by the Russian media for his alleged recklessness.
“Increasing the level of command of military special operations is related to the expansion of the scope of tasks … the need to organize closer contact between different branches of the Armed Forces and to improve the quality … and effectiveness of the administration of the Russian language Armed Forces,” it said in a statement of the ministry.
Surovikin was demoted after just three months in office and he will become Gerasimov’s deputy along with two other generals – Oleg Salyukov and Alexey Kim.
Days after Surovikin’s appointment, the Russian army signaled a shift in strategy by unleashing a wave of drone and missile attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure targets, causing power outages and water shortages in several cities.
During his brief stint overseeing troops in Ukraine, Surovikin was credited with strengthening coordination and tightening control.
But he also announced in November a withdrawal from Kherson, one of the largest and most important cities captured by Russian forces during the conflict. His demotion signaled that Russian President Vladimir Putin was not entirely satisfied with his performance.
“The war is getting bigger”
Dmitry Trenin, a Moscow-based political scientist, said the move was taken to “streamline the chain of command in the operation in Ukraine.”
“Gerasimov’s appointment means that the importance of the operation has increased and the scope of the operation may be greater than what we see today. This is very significant,” Trenin told Al Jazeera.
“The war is getting bigger, more dangerous, and I think that’s beyond the level of a field commander. This is now in the hands of the Supreme Commander of the Russian Armed Forces.”
Russian war commentators were not impressed.
“The sum does not change simply by changing the places of its parts,” wrote a prominent military blogger who posts under the name Rybar on the messaging app Telegram.
He said Surovikin, a veteran of Russia’s campaigns in Chechnya and Syria, has been made the fall guy for a series of recent Russian military debacles, including a Ukrainian attack on a Russian barracks in the town of Makiivka that killed at least 89 Russian soldiers . including conscripts, during the New Year period.
Surovikin was appointed Russia’s top battlefield commander in Ukraine just last October after a spate of Ukrainian offensives that turned the tide of the war and drew attention to the poor training, equipment and morale of Russian forces.