Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky dismissed Lieutenant General Sergei Shaptala from the post of Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU), and appointed Anatoly Bargilevich in his place. He announced this on February 9 in his evening video message on Telegram.
“I replaced the head of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. At the suggestion of Commander-in-Chief Alexander Syrsky, he appointed Major General Anatoly Bargilevich as the new chief of the General Staff,” Zelensky said.
In addition, the President of Ukraine noted that Alexander Syrsky, who was recently appointed to the post of Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, had already identified his new deputies, but their names were not named.
The day before, on February 8, Zelensky dismissed the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Valery Zaluzhny, and appointed Syrsky, who had served as commander of the ground forces since 2019, to this position. Politico cited the reason for Zaluzhny’s resignation as the refusal to follow the Pentagon’s recommendations for a counteroffensive in the summer of 2023, which ended in the failure of the Ukrainian army. According to the publication, there were tensions between Zaluzhny and the US Department of Defense over how to conduct a counteroffensive.
The Ukrainian publication “Mirror of the Week,” citing sources in the country’s Ministry of Defense, suggested that instead of Syrsky, Lieutenant General Alexander Pavlyuk could become the new commander of the ground forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Currently, he is the country's first deputy defense minister.
As a former special forces officer, retired colonel Anatoly Matviychuk noted in a conversation with Izvestia on February 9, the new commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine will not change the course of the special military operation, but, on the contrary, may lead to a deterioration in the position of the Ukrainian army at the front. He noted that Syrsky took over the defense of Artemovsk (Ukrainian name – Bakhmut), which, as is known, was liberated by the Russian military in the summer of 2023.
The appointment of Syrsky to the post of commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine was also appreciated in the Kremlin. Press Secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov noted that this factor will not change the course of the special military operation – it will continue until the set goals are achieved.
Zelensky announced on February 4 that Ukraine’s administrative apparatus needs personnel renewal. He added that this applies not only to its military component.
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