This post is going to consist of two parts. Part one I wrote two days ago but never posted because I wanted address a couple other points as well, but never had the time to do so. So I will post it as is with no amendments, in spite of the fact that the situation completely changed earlier today and I would change some of my post as well, but would rather address it in another post. So part 1:
(You understand it's not from the internet or the medias.)
Yes, absolutely. Neither is mine. But I refer to other sources as well. It provides a better picture.
Every time in history, when a general looses a a battle or a war he is dismissed. Zaluzhny may not be responsible for the defeat but what do we know? We don't know how effective is Zaluzhny's competences. Fact is that he is extremely popular among soldiers in the ranks. And replacing him could be counter productive. But being popular doesn't mean competent. He can be popular and at the same made strategic mistakes.
I partially agree and partially disagree. Here it appears to be the case of Zelensky having a different “vision” of the situation. No one here knows for a fact, all we can do is collect (somewhat) reliable information and make conclusions that we deem to be reasonable.
After the offensive, Zaluzhny was pretty clearly explaining what is happening on the front, outlining his actual vision of the situation (and reality) and what needs to happen in order to change it. I am sure he didn’t come up with it the day or week after it was over. Absolute majority of experts (that I read at least) agreed. Zaluzhny saw the offensive for it was the day it began as it was outlined in the Washington Post article I summarized a few weeks ago. Zelesnky clearly saw it differently and until recently, like 2 or 3 weeks ago (?), tried to convince everyone otherwise. I completely understand that there must be a single vision or at the very least a strong alliance between the generals and top politicians, but when politicians are acting borderline insane, it is another matter. It seems to me that Zelesnky had outplayed his role. He is completely out of his element now and his contributions are likely minimal. This is as opposed to when he played his role perfectly, touring the world, accumulating support, and collecting financial, humanitarian, and military aid. This is in the past now for the most part and he will likely need to find a new place or idea for himself, a role, if you will.
Sources suggest that it was that very article in The Economist that really pissed him off, the admission of stalemate by Zaluzhny, and finally tipped the scale. Here is one, but I read others as well in the recent days (as well as back then):
An ongoing rift in Kyiv could finally boil over.
www.politico.eu
People close to Zelenskyy, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, told POLITICO that Zaluzhny’s essay left the president scrambling to reassure partners the war is not a dead end, and that it’s still worth helping Ukraine. Zelenskyy now wants his army to come up with a strategy that will encourage allies to keep the aid flowing.
What is needed most at the moment is a strategy that aligns with reality, not “we will be knocking at the doors of Crimea by the fall”. That is nonsense and everyone understands it. In my opinion, Zaluzhny offered best ideas and I believe he made it publicly for a reason. He likely strongly disagrees with Zelensky because his “vision” would leave a lot of troops on that frontline. Places like Bakhmut then, Krynky now, for example. Keep in mind, that it was him who publicly insisted on holding Bakhmut for as long as they could, as well as Syrsky who played the role. For all we know he was advised by the very Zaluzhny to do so (though there were reports that it was Syrsky’s game), but that was clearly a mistake and we can only guess for the rest. Avdiivka will now likely be in the similar situation, if not already. So I think there is a lot of disagreement there.
Budanov suggested, on the other hand, a couple of days ago that Ukrainians will go on the offensive once the Russians are done with theirs. That’s clearly team Zelensky talking. He can count on Budanov to have that aligned view, the view that is completely delusional, in my opinion.
Syrsky… Well, again, I don’t know who parroted who, but him and Zelensky were signing the same song about many events on the battlefield that we now know for a fact didn’t turn out as they were signing it.
Anyway… The reality is that Zaluzhny is not only popular among the ranks, but also people.
Although he has shown no signs of political ambition, the general is the only figure able to rival the president in public esteem: a survey by the Kyiv Institute of Sociology late last year gave him an 88 per cent approval rating, compared with 62 per cent for Zelensky.
There is very little doubt that Zelensky’s ratings would sink further when he lets Zaluzhny go. Aside from the common sense, this is also evident from another poll:
This means he has escaped any public blame for the disappointing outcome of the 2023 counteroffensive: a poll in December had 72 per cent opposing his dismissal and just 2 per cent in favour.
Source for the above:
The Ukraine war has changed, so Zelensky must reinvent himself
Therein lies the problem for the president. There is nothing he can do to improve his ratings inside the country. Zaluzhny can basically tell the truth and, potentially, become even more popular. Zelensky telling the same truth would become the menace of society because he was lying since… Basically since he took the office.
The main issue is, really, Zelensky is completely disconnected from reality. He still insists that they will take back Crimea. He insists that once enough countries support his “peace formula”, he will (maybe) invite Russia to the talks and the conflict will be resolved, Russia packing up and going home, Putin, among others, going to jail, etc. Up until very recently, he insisted that the offensive was still going strong and they are “winning”, while last year ended with Russia taking more land from Ukraine than they lost. And so on.
Finally, I would suggest that Zelensky is the one who makes the final decisions and he is ultimately responsible for the strategic mistakes and failures. But this is also the point when the generals get fired.
End of part 1. Part 2:
I was going to write quite a bit on the western support, but will limit myself to a couple of paragraphs so that I can address the dismissal of Zaluzhny.
About Zelensky balming the West: I can nothing but agree with him. The West has always promised unlimited support. And now, it looks like it's limited. No Taurus, no F16, no ATACMS (or very little)... Of course, it was not diplomatic to do so.
So the promise of “unlimited support” was idiotic. This was very clear back when it was promised. I wrote about it many, many times here in this very thread. First of all, when someone uses words like “never”, “always”, “unlimited”, in other words what is generally known as hyperbole, one should know that they are either straight up lying, significantly exaggerating, don’t know what they are talking about, etc. Said otherwise, it is never a reality, which is why we have this word “hyperbole”. Second, one has to consider that when these promises of “unlimited support” were made, those who promised were only providing javelins and stingers, among other smaller things, along with “undercover” supplies of outdated Soviet equipment. If someone assumed that these promises implied provision of Taurus, F16s, ATACMS, etc, well, that’s completely on them.
However, let’s look at it from the Ukrainian side. They had nothing to lose, so they went all in. As long as they visibly (<- that word is very important here) stayed afloat, they could hope for more support. Then there is something called “commitment”. I already made an extensive post about it here a long time ago now, but the basic idea is if you can make someone commit to a minor thing, you can more often than not make them commit to quite a bit more, generally speaking. This is an extremely useful strategy and is used in marketing, all kinds of negotiations, you name. This is basically how we got to the summer of 2023.
The western perspective was that Russia needed to be defeated, that is, of course, because Ukraine seemed to be capable. Keep in mind, this is my broken record talking again, no one still defined what that actually means to “defeat Russia”, but everyone still seems to be pretty comfortable using these very words today. It became less clear and actually quite murky last summer. But let’s scroll back a little. The Ukrainians were kicking the Russian asses in Kharkiv and (
much less so or even hardly) in Kherson, thanks to the mighty river, and, according to the reports of the day, all that was made possible by the deliveries of HIMARS for the most part. What would happen if more and more sophisticated equipment is provided? At that point, many already believed that Russia had been defeated and with another little push, they’d go home and victory would prevail. No one appeared to consider that the Russians were all in even though they didn’t yet throw the chips on the table (or no one cared to look). The Russians were all in before the invasion even began and they still are well in the game. So that “unlimited” is very… well, limited because common sense.
Reached the character limit, more in the next post.
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