Russia appoints a new commander in Ukraine to overcome the latest setbacks

The Russian army announced on Saturday the appointment of a new commander to lead the “special military operation” in Ukraine after a series of bitter setbacks on the ground and signs of growing discontent among elites over the management of the conflict.

“Army General Sergey Sorovikin has been appointed commander of the joint group of forces in the Special Military Operation Zone” in Ukraine, the Russian Defense Ministry announced on Telegram.

Surovikin, 55, had previously participated in the civil war in Tajikistan during the 1990s, in the second Chechen war at the beginning of the third millennium, and in the Russian intervention in Syria, which began in 2015.

So far, he was leading the “Southern” forces group in Ukraine, according to a report by the Russian Defense Ministry dating back to July.

His predecessor’s name was never officially revealed, but the Russian media indicated that he was General Alexander Dvornikov, who in turn participated in the second Chechen war and commanded Russian forces in Syria in 2015 and 2016.

This decision, announced by Moscow in a rare case, comes after a series of major failures of the Russian army in Ukraine.

The Russian forces were expelled at the beginning of September from most of the Kharkiv region northeast, after a Ukrainian counter-attack that allowed Kiev to regain control of thousands of square kilometers of its territory.

Also, the Russian forces lost 500 square kilometers of land in the Kherson region in southern Ukraine, and with great difficulty escaped from the cordon around the strategic town of Lyman, which is now under the control of the Ukrainian forces.

These defeats sparked criticism within the Russian elite.

The Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov attacked the military leadership, while parliamentary official Andrei Kartapolov publicly called on the army to stop lying.

The replacement of the commander of the Russian forces in Ukraine coincided with an explosion that partially destroyed the Crimean Bridge, which is a major artery for delivering supplies to the peninsula annexed by Moscow and to its forces in Ukraine.