Russian President Vladimir Putin and General Valery Gerasimov – Portal
For the Russian commanders there is no peace. In ten months of war, the Kremlin killed six, a sign of the Red Army’s inevitable troubles. Sergey Surovikin is another victim. It lasted only three months, like Dvornikov and Zhidko before him. Vladimir Putin torpedoed him without fanfare and relegated him to a mere aide-de-camp to Valery Gerasimov, chief of staff and the new number one of the Russian expeditionary force in Ukraine.
The tsar is desperate: he feels that the strategy of irresistible pressure, his last remaining card, is not working. It’s not because of the Russo-Soviet threads, which have always been advocates of blitzkriegs. Will we see Stalin’s failure in Finland again? Putin does not know how to navigate in a war that has become complicated. In his life he has done nothing but the politician or the junior intelligence officer. It has no war history. Face blindly a seemingly hopeless military crisis. From June to date, his army has only managed to capture Soledar, a village that had a population of just 11,000 before the conflict. Taking it is a small feat compounded by an exorbitant human cost.
The very partisan Institute for War Studies is oddly cautious. He doesn’t even dare to criticize the tsar. On the contrary, he thinks the move in Ukraine makes sense given the next offensive, which is set for early spring. A theory also espoused by the Izvestia newspaper, which applauds the Kremlin’s move: “As a commander, Surovikin had no authority over strategic aviation, ships and espionage”. He was a semi-leader who couldn’t coordinate the Army and National Guard. Even the police avoided him. Gerasimov, on the other hand, will mobilize the synergies “between the different components”.
However, Putin’s risk is surprising. It seems to be dictated by political rather than military logic, because Surovikin didn’t deserve to be fired. He commanded well. He had succeeded in imposing a linear vision, reducing objectives and attack front. He was economical with men and had rearranged the logistics. In the three months in command he can only be credited with the Makiinkva massacre and terrorist bombing excesses, the result of an unqualified faith in the theories of Giulio Douhet, bankruptcy in past wars, from the Blitzes of 1940 to the useless raids of 1944 -45 .
But Surovikin was brilliant: he knew how to orchestrate the retreat from Kherson, performing one of the most difficult military maneuvers. Unfortunately it wasn’t enough for him. His career has been cut short by the irrationality that has dominated Russia’s operation in Ukraine since February.
By demoting Surovikin, did Putin perhaps want to issue a warning to Eugeniy Prighozin, the head of the mercenaries, and to Chechen leader Kadirov? The general was too close to Wagner’s boss and the nationalist galaxy, worlds extremely critical of Defense Minister Shoigu and Gerasimov himself, two Putin disciples, unable to disagree with him but inconsistent and damaging in warfare. It is a short circuit, reminiscent of the vicissitudes of the Third Reich barricaded in a bunker: a regime in collapse, no longer aware of the camp.
Putin has chosen his protégés, who have deceived him more than once in the past and who are the main architects of the Ukrainian Red Army disaster. However, the waltz of the generals, who have become ambitious and critical of the Kremlin, seems to be the main route to new failures.