Putin culling failed commanders

 PJ Media:

Russian strongman Vladimir Putin has removed several top military commanders from their positions due to “poor performances” in the Ukraine War, according to British intelligence officials on Thursday.

The U.K. Ministry of Defense described “a culture of cover-ups and scapegoating” that might keep more Russian officers “distracted by efforts to avoid personal culpability for Russia’s operational set-backs.”

Lt. Gen. Serhiy Kisel, who commanded Russia’s elite 1st Guards Tank Army, has been suspended for his failure to capture Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv. Vice Adm. Igor Osipov, who commanded Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, has also likely been suspended following the sinking of the fleet’s flagship, Moskva, in April. Gen. Valeriy Gerasimov, the Russian military’s chief of the general staff, likely remains in his post, but it was unclear whether he retains the confidence of Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to the ministry.

The failure at Kharkiv is telling. Russian troops never managed to take or even surround Ukraine’s second-largest city despite its proximity to the Russian border and Russia’s military logistics hub at Belgorod. Over the last two weeks, the Ukraine Army has pushed the Russians almost fully out of the Kharkiv Oblast (region), in some locations all the way back to the border.

Russia abandoned the Battle of Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, at the end of March. Soldiers removed from fighting there have been reinforcing the effort to take the rest of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, according to multiple sources. Seven weeks later, Russia has yet to make much additional progress in Donbas.

That’s not to say everything is going swimmingly for Ukraine.

Earlier this week, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiyy described the conditions in the Donbas as “hell” and said the industrialized and resource-rich region had been “completely destroyed” by the fighting.

Down south, after weeks of delays and heavy fighting, Russian forces appear to have almost entirely eliminated Ukrainian resistance at the massive Azovstal plant in Mariupol. The city — along with the cash-cow steel plant — has been so badly destroyed that Russia announced it will transform it from an industrial area to a resort town.

There are plenty of resort towns on the Black Sea. Massive steel plants are a bit harder to come by. Azovstal had employed more than 12,000 people at the single facility and had been a big earner of foreign currency.

Russia used to be a lot better at the whole spoils of war thing.

On Monday, retired Russian Army Colonel Mikhail Khodaryonok warned — on Russian state television, if you can believe that — that things “will get worse” for Russia.

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There is much more.

If Putin was all in on firing failed commanders he would be firing himself since he is primarily responsible for many of the debacles. He has been forcing commanders into attacks that were poorly planned and executed.