The steel-blue eyes and poker face of General Aleksandr Dvornikov (60) will oversee Russian combat operations in Ukraine. Dvornikov has been ordered to lead the Russian offensive in eastern Ukraine. At least, that is what Western intelligence sources report to the British broadcaster BBC and the American newspaperThe New York Times† The Kremlin has neither confirmed nor denied the appointment of a new commander, but Dvornikov’s name is now on the minds of all military analysts.
The general will try to win a victory for President Putin in the failed military campaign. With him as commander, the Russians must conquer the Donbas region, or ‘liberate’ the provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk from Ukraine. Preferably, Dvornikov succeeds in this before 9 May, when in Moscow celebrates the victory over the Nazis in World War II with a large parade.
Syrian Civil War
Judging by his service record, it quickly becomes clear why this general was entrusted with the new war target. Dvornikov caused a furore in the Syrian civil war from September 2015 to July 2016 as the first commander of Russian military support for President Bashar al-Assad, who was not winning at the time. “By the summer of 2015, the Syrian armed forces had completely exhausted themselves, the personnel had been demoralized, the officer corps had been downgraded and the leadership of the armed forces showed extremely low efficiency in command and control,” said Dvornikov. back to this in 2018†
Dvornikov’s efforts earned him the honorary title ‘Hero of Russia’
Dvornikov then moved the command of the remaining Syrian brigades to the Russian armed forces and treated them as pawns in one bigger plan, he said. His efforts earned him the honorary title ‘Hero of Russia’. Upon his return, he was appointed commander of the Southern Military District, one of Russia’s five military formations. The southern district includes the Russian territories of Chechnya, Dagestan, North Ossetia, Crimea – historically troubled regions.
The Syrians remember something else about Dvornikov’s war style: incessant bombing of civilian targets. Putin has appointed a new commander with extensive experience committing heinous genocidal crimes against defenseless civilians in Syria. In the rocket attack on the train station in Kramatorsk, some saw Dvornikov’s hand.
Also read: No more laughing at the tinkering of the Russian army
The failure of the Russians to capture Kiev in a short period of time was partly due to “poor coordination between the various Russian commands,” an anonymous intelligence official told the BBC. Dvornikov has experience improving these elements of warfare.
But not everyone sees his appointment as a powerful move. “I see it as a sign of weakness on the part of the Russians,” Gwythian Prins, a military strategy specialist who has advised NATO, among other things, told the BBC. According to Prins, the only reason that a new general has now been appointed is that all kinds of previous commanders have been killed by the Ukrainians. “And now they’ve brought in a very famous bomber. He is abandoning the failed Blitzkrieg strategy and going back to terrorizing civilians by blasting everything to rubble.”
A version of this article also appeared in NRC on the morning of 11 April 2022
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