Sirski, a general loyal to Zelensky to resist the Russian advance

General Oleksandr Sirski is one of the heroes that the Russian invasion has given to Ukraine. The new commander of the Armed Forces, the most important military position in the country, is highly trusted by the president, Volodymyr Zelensky, unlike his predecessor, General Valeri Zaluzhni. Sirski will go down in history for having led the defense of Kiev at the beginning of the war, in February and March 2022, and for having successfully commanded the lightning counteroffensive that liberated Kharkiv province in September 2022. But Zaluzhni's charisma , idolized by the troops, will be difficult for the new commander to overcome, according to leading analysts of the conflict.

Sirski is 58 years old and was born in Novinka, a municipality near Moscow. Son of a Soviet soldier, the Russian state agency TASS assures that part of his family, including a brother, still resides in Russia, although without maintaining a relationship between them. Sirski graduated in 1986 from the most important Soviet school for high command, in Moscow. In the late 1980s he moved to Ukraine and, since the country's independence (1991), he served as one of its most promising officers. In 2013 he was appointed head of the Ukrainian army's cooperation with NATO. Since the beginning of his presidency, in 2019, both he and Zaluzhni were Zelensky's bets to accelerate the transformation of the Armed Forces to the standards of the Atlantic Alliance. Sirski has been the head of the Army since that year.

Like so many other senior Ukrainian officials, Sirski's practical experience as a military leader took a leap forward during the war that began in 2014 against pro-Russian separatists in the Donbas region in the east of the country. The experience of fighting against Russia since then, the knowledge of the Soviet military model and the adaptation of NATO tactical methods are the combination that has allowed high-ranking military personnel like him and Zaluzhni to stop the invasion of a superpower.

Sirski will be remembered for the victory in the siege of kyiv and for the surprise offensive that expelled the Russians from practically the entire Kharkiv province. In this counteroffensive it was Sirski who took the credit, projected by the presidency, leaving Zaluzhni in second place. in his book The Showmanjournalist Simon Shuster, after living for a year and a half with the president and his team, reveals that the offensive in Kharkiv was a direct decision by Zelensky entrusted to Sirski, bypassing the command of Zaluzhni, who was in favor of liberating the province first. of Kherson.

The Showman It also indicates that the resistance until the last meter in Bakhmut was a decision by the president against Zaluzhni's opinion. He was in favor of a withdrawal that would avoid burning resources unnecessarily. Officially, both defended the same strategy, but up to four officers interviewed by EL PAÍS in the summer and autumn of 2023, during the failed counteroffensive on the Zaporizhia front, explained that, indeed, the now former commander in chief was in favor of retreating.

Bakhmut was taken by the invader in March 2023, after more than six months of battle. The Ukrainian Armed Forces concentrated their war effort on resisting in this city in the Donetsk province. Meanwhile, Russia took the opportunity to fortify the entire front with defensive lines that have proven impregnable with the resources that Ukraine has. The Russian army burned in Bakhmut mainly the shock force it used, the mercenaries of the Wagner group.

An estimated 30,000 Wagner fighters perished in the battle. Defense analysts and media such as Pravda, The Kyiv Independent either Financial Times They have highlighted that Sirski earned a reputation in Bakhmut as a ruthless commander, with few qualms about sacrificing the lives of his men. The butcher is the nickname he has received from his subordinates, according to multiple Ukrainian military accounts on social media.

Opinion division

“I admit that I was a little surprised by the choice and it has already created a real controversy,” Phillips O'Brien, professor of Strategic Studies at the University of Saint Andrews (Scotland), wrote on his website. “Sirsky divides opinions like no other military figure in Ukraine, and appointing him is a risky move for Zelensky,” he says. “The president's decision is controversial and comes at an extremely difficult time on all fronts,” added Serhii Zgurets, director of Defense Express, Ukrainian media specialized in military analysis: “The level of trust that Zaluzhni had between the military and civilians, Sirski surely will not have.”

Sirski published his first statement as commander in chief this Friday. The general assures that “the life and health of soldiers is the main asset of an army.” For this reason, he indicates, “it is more important than ever to maintain the balance between the development of combat actions and the recovery of units.” Sirski does not mention in the note one of the issues on which Zaluzhni put the most pressure on Zelensky, the need to carry out a new massive mobilization, of at least 500,000 new soldiers, to make up for the hundreds of thousands of casualties suffered in the two years of war. The Rada, the Ukrainian Parliament, is debating a new mobilization law these weeks, an unpopular issue that the president has tried to manage with the greatest possible restraint because people who are willing to voluntarily go to war are now exceptional cases.

Zaluzhni had reiterated in recent months that the war is at a standstill and that there was no option to recover territory, at least in 2024, due to the lack of sufficient resources provided by its NATO allies. The general concluded that the conflict would from now on be positional, without major operations. Zaluzhni's realism angered Zelensky. The president defended last Sunday that the military leadership needed a renewal to transmit optimism: “If we want to win, everyone has to push in the same direction, convinced of victory, we cannot lose hope.”

Sirski told the Reuters agency last January that the front is not frozen and that progress may be made in 2024. But the truth is that Russia currently surpasses Ukraine in all military areas, and is little by little gaining ground again in the provinces of Donetsk and Kharkiv. In his first statement as commander in chief, Sirski stressed that the “rational” use of weapons is a priority.

The Ukrainian Government periodically insists that its arsenals are at their limit due to the difficulties in Europe, and especially in the United States, in supplying new weapons and projectiles. Whoever is the head of the Ukrainian army, without the agreement in Washington between Republicans and Democrats to allocate a new military assistance package, the future of the war will fall in favor of the Kremlin. The 55 billion euros that President Joe Biden plans to allocate to kyiv are not enough to launch new offensives, but they are enough to resist. The Ukrainian defense budget for 2024, with the provision of receiving this aid, is three times less than that of Russia. This is the harsh reality that Sirski must manage.

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