Russia again replaced this Wednesday, January 11 the commander of its offensive in Ukraine, this time appointing General Valéri Guerassimov, the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces, announced the Ministry of Defense.
In a statement, the ministry said that Valery Gerasimov became “commander of the combined troop grouping” deployed in Ukraine to replace Sergei Surovikin who led operations for barely three months.
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“The increase in the level of command of the special operation (in Ukraine) is linked to an expansion of the scope of the missions to be carried out, to the need to conduct closer interaction between the components of the armed forces”explained the ministry.
He specifies that Valéri Guerassimov will have Generals Sergei Surovikin, Oleg Salioukov and Alexei Kim as assistants.
Battle around Bakhmout
Reputed to be implacable, Sergei Surovikin was appointed commander of troops in Ukraine in October to redress the situation of the Russian army which was suffering setbacks in the face of Ukrainian offensives in the regions of Kharkiv (northeast) and Kherson (south).
It was Sergei Surovikin in particular who proposed and organized the withdrawal of Russian forces from the city of Kherson at the beginning of November, a major setback for the Kremlin.
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Since then, the front has generally stabilized, except in the Bakhmout area, in the Donetsk region (east), a city that the Russian army and the paramilitary group Wagner have been trying to conquer for months.
Faced with these difficulties on the ground, Vladimir Putin ordered the mobilization of 300,000 reservists and a campaign to bomb Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
