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Who is Putin's former agent, the hated general who is "invading" Russia with the Ukrainian army?
2024-08-13 19:22:17 / BOTA
He has deep ties to Russia, with his past as an officer in the "Red Army", while his parents and one of his brothers still live in Moscow. We are talking about the head of the Armed Forces of Ukraine who has had the reputation of the "butcher" since the Battle of Bakhmut, when he ordered his soldiers to resist at all costs in the face of the enemy's overwhelming advance.
The fact is that when, on February 8, 2024, President Volodymyr Zelensky appointed 59-year-old General Oleksandr Syrskyi to head the Armed Forces of Ukraine, for some time he became one of the most hated figures in the country. He was accused of being a semi-agent of Putin, a cynical officer of the old Soviet style, but above all of bowing to the machinations of Zelenskiy, who wanted to remove the popular general Valerii Zaluzhnyi, who was considered a "hero" and savior of the homeland since the start of the Russian invasion in February 2022.
Even today, public opinion and commentators largely believe that the president wanted to get rid of a formidable, extremely popular competitor (today Zaluzhnyi is ambassador in London), who was potentially capable of defeating him once the next presidential election was held.
However, all this attention to palace intrigues in Kiev has caused Syrskyi's merits and military skills to be forgotten. From the testimonies of hundreds of soldiers from the battlefields to the rear in these 30 months of war, very contradictory opinions have been found about him: words of contempt, even fear, but also respect and applause.
Today much of the credit for the Kursk offensive goes to him. He has the stealth, the ability to catch the Russians off guard, the strength to make the most of the few resources available, and the courage, perhaps the game, the risk, to put them in harm's way as the Russians push into the Donbas.
Yesterday he announced after seven days of fighting that the Ukrainians control about 1,000 square kilometers of Russian territory and now he will have the task of defending the acquired territories.
However, upon closer inspection, these qualities were there before and have grown with experience. The son of a dynasty of Russian army officers, at the age of 15 he entered the military academy in Moscow and served in Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Czechoslovakia. In 1993, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, he joined the leadership of the new armed forces of Ukraine, cooperated with European armies and in 2013 was at NATO headquarters in Brussels.
But, above all, a year later he fought against the Russian occupation of Donbass. He led the difficult battle of Debaltsevo and stood out in Donetsk, where Putin sent battalions of Buryats and Chechens disguised as "volunteers". It should not be forgotten that Zaluzhnyi wanted him by his side when Putin launched the invasion on February 24, 2022. At first they fought together for the defense of Kiev. Both applied NATO doctrines to their best: they used small, mobile, agile, fast and independent units against slow and outdated Russian tank columns. It's the same strategy he used now to win at Kursk.
In particular, Syrskyi won the "Hero of Ukraine" medal for the amazing defense and subsequent victory of Kharkiv and its surroundings in the fall of 2022. Then, today in Kursk, he operates in complete secrecy. He doesn't speak, he doesn't give statements, his soldiers advance and silence prevails. Yesterday he spoke for the first time and they were words of victory. Perhaps it is finally erasing the shadows of six months ago.
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