Colonel Khodarenok: Zaluzhny's article for CNN is similar to the presidential candidate's statement
Information about the imminent resignation of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is constantly updated. The Washington Post reports that Kiev has already informed the US administration of the decision to dismiss Valery Zaluzhny. The current commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine himself wrote a long article for CNN, in which he criticized the Ukrainian political leadership. Why Zaluzhny acted as a politician and not as a military man is in the material of the military observer of the Newspaper.En" by Mikhail Khodarenka.
The fact that the relationship between the President of Ukraine, Vladimir Zelensky, and the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, General Valery Zaluzhny, has already heated up to the limit is more than clearly demonstrated by the general's speech on CNN .
The Commander-in-chief, in accordance with his functional duties, must deal with issues of operational management of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (that is, strategic planning of use, combat and mobilization readiness, management during combat operations, development of proposals on the size of the Armed Forces, etc.). And Valery Zaluzhny, in the text presented on CNN, constantly invades purely political issues concerning the functions and duties of the president of Ukraine and the government of the country.
In his article, Zaluzhny recalls the factors that influence the search for new forms of use of APU. Let's list (and analyze) them in the order in which they are set out in the general's speech.
The commander-in-chief further writes: "there is a high probability that Russia will provoke a number of conflicts following the example of Israel and Yemen and distract key partners from supporting Ukraine." And again, the work to prevent such situations is strictly the area of action of the political leadership in Kiev (of course, within the framework available to it).
Zaluzhny also draws attention to the fact that the sanctions policy is not effective enough and leads to the deployment of the capacities of the military-industrial complex of Russia and its partner states. He also believes that it allows, at least, Moscow to successfully wage a positional war of attrition. Again, this item has nothing to do with the issues of operational management of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Then the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine complains about the significant advantage in mobilizing the enemy's human resources (that is, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation) and the inability of state institutions of Ukraine to improve the staffing of the Armed Forces without the use of unpopular measures. And again, a large stone from Zaluzhny flew into the garden of the political leadership of Ukraine.
Commander-in-Chief Zaluzhny also mentions the imperfection of the regulatory framework governing the activities of the armed forces - "the industrial complex in our country and the partial monopolization of this industry lead to difficulties in the production of domestic ammunition, as a result, Ukraine's deepening dependence on allied supplies."
Further, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine writes: "the uncertainty of the further nature of the armed struggle of this scale is a consequence of the difficulty for our allies in determining support priorities."
It is still more correct to talk about the nature of the war as a set of the most significant characteristic features and indicators that reveal its socio-political and military-technical (strategic) content. Once again, this issue is more political than military in nature. Because, first of all, it is necessary to talk about the political goals of the warring parties. As for Ukraine's allies, relations with them are again within the competence of the political leadership in Kiev. And again, this thesis of Valery Zaluzhny, as they say, is not "according to the department."
Only one point can be attributed to the field of activity of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and even then only partially and with great restrictions: "the exhaustion of ammunition stocks for artillery and missiles for the air defense of our partners due to the high intensity of hostilities in Ukraine and the impossibility of their rapid production against the background of a global shortage of gunpowder."
So the factors listed by Valery Zaluzhny, which, in his opinion, influence the search for new forms of use of the Armed Forces, for the most part relate exclusively to the field of politics. We can also say this - in this part, the speech of the Commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine can be considered not as the speech of the military commander responsible for the operational management of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, but as a potential candidate for president of Ukraine.
The opinion of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.
Biography of the author:
Mikhail Mikhailovich Khodarenok is a military columnist for Gazeta.Ru", retired colonel.
He graduated from the Minsk Higher Engineering Anti-Aircraft Missile School (1976), the Military Air Defense Command Academy (1986).
Commander of the S-75 anti-aircraft missile division (1980-1983).
Deputy commander of the anti-aircraft missile regiment (1986-1988).
Senior Officer of the General Staff of the Air Defense Forces (1988-1992).
Officer of the Main Operational Directorate of the General Staff (1992-2000).
Graduated from the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Russia (1998).
Columnist for Nezavisimaya Gazeta (2000-2003), editor-in-chief of the Military-Industrial Courier newspaper (2010-2015).
Mikhail Khodarenok
