"The cashier can be fired this way": what's wrong with Zaluzhny's resignation and what to expect from the APU

Colonel Khodarenok: Commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Zaluzhny was fired as a cashier from a store

The series with the resignation of General Valery Zaluzhny, which started in the summer of 2023, has come to its logical conclusion - the Ukrainian military commander has been removed from his post. What is wrong with Zaluzhny's resignation and what consequences await the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the military observer of the Newspaper figured out.En" Mikhail Khodarenok.

There were already many surprising things in the actions of the President of Ukraine, Vladimir Zelensky, and his appointees for the work of the state and military administration apparatus. And the resignation of General Zaluzhny from the post of Commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is another example of this. By and large, this is inevitable - the current leadership of Ukraine is recruited, as they say, from the forest and from the pine tree, and does not have serious experience in senior positions (frankly, it is a team made up of provincial amateurs).

Even the decree on the resignation of the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine published on the website of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky says "To dismiss Valery Fedorovich Zaluzhny from the post of commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine." The reasons for the resignation are not indicated in the text.

According to official reports, Vladimir Zelensky held a meeting with Valery Zaluzhny, at which he told him about the need to update the leadership of the army. The Head of State thanked the general for two years of service and offered to stay in the team.

So, since Kiev believes that Ukraine is at war, there is a Supreme Commander-in-Chief in Kiev, the Supreme Command Headquarters has been formed, so the decision on Valery Zaluzhny should, in theory, look like this:

VGK Rate Directive No. 001

V. Zelensky

And the wording "to dismiss Valery Fedorovich Zaluzhny from the post of commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine" is, to say the least, surprising. This cashier in Pyaterochka can be dismissed with such wording, but such definitions are not applicable to the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

In this case, Zelensky could have resorted to the following formulations:

if guilty of the failure of the summer offensive, then "remove from office and dismiss from the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine without the right to wear a military uniform";

or [/i]"to dismiss from his post and appoint an adviser to the President of Ukraine."[/i]

Vladimir Zelensky invited Valery Zaluzhny to "stay in the team." But there is no such position in the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

It would seem, what difference does it make with what wording the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine was dismissed from office? And isn't the attention only to this issue a banal military artifice and petty quibbles on our part? Not at all.

In Ukraine, such a management scheme and the organizational and staff structure of the highest state and military administration bodies are in use, which also cannot but cause surprise. There is the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, there is the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, there is the Minister of Defense, the General Staff rotates between all of them. There is no strict management vertical, responsibilities between them are not legally delimited, and personal conflicts in such chaos are simply inevitable.

What to expect from the Armed Forces of Ukraine after Zaluzhny's resignation

What will happen in the Armed Forces of Ukraine at the first stage after the resignation of Valery Zaluzhny? In the near future, there will be a whole series of resignations, promotions and reassignments in the Ukrainian army. But this, in general, should not be surprising. The new commander-in-chief will surely bring his team to the controls of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

And any promotion of an officer (general) to a higher position, as well as his resignation, leads to a whole series of appointments and reassignments, the so-called personnel chains, which in any case must be closed. It would not be a big exaggeration to say that such a personnel wave in the Armed Forces of Ukraine will reach the platoon commander.

What will happen next when the personnel vortex in the Armed Forces of Ukraine subsides?

Another thing is that it is still difficult to say in which direction the changes in the Ukrainian army will go.

There is only one thing for sure - the winter campaign on the fronts is nearing completion. A thaw is coming in Southern Ukraine. We cannot expect any offensive actions of an operational-strategic, operational and even operational-tactical scale and scope from the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the near future.

Kiev simply does not have the strength and means to do this. Financing of Ukraine from the collective West has been suspended for the time being (but, it should be noted, there are positive trends), although supplies of weapons and military equipment to the Armed Forces of Ukraine continue, but far from the volumes that Kiev expects.

So in such conditions, General Syrsky will not be able to show his generalship talents in the foreseeable future. At the same time, there is no doubt that in the near future, the Armed Forces of Ukraine intend to use relatively cheap unmanned aerial vehicles to launch sudden and massive strikes on critical infrastructure facilities of the Russian Federation and hit both surface and underwater forces of the Black Sea Fleet and its coastal infrastructure almost to the entire depth of the theater of military operations at sea.

Such attacks by the Armed Forces of Ukraine are very painfully reflected in the broadest strata of Russian society, but this is exactly what the actions of the Ukrainian leadership are aimed at. There is no doubt that under the new commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, General Syrsky, these strikes will continue, but it is premature to talk about everything else.

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