Zelenskyy replaces key commander, removed officer wonders why

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday (3 November) appointed a new commander of its special forces, a unit known for conducting military operations in Moscow-held territories, but the officer replaced in the shuffle said he had not been told why.

Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address that Colonel Serhiy Lupanchuk would now head the forces and described him as “an experienced officer, combat officer and the right man in command”.

The president said Lupanchuk’s predecessor, Maj-Gen. Viktor Horenko, who led the forces from July 2022, “will continue to perform special tasks” within the Defence Ministry’s Intelligence Directorate.

Zelenskyy gave no further explanation for the change.

Horenko said in an interview he had been told nothing.

“I personally don’t know the reasons. Let me just say that I learned of this from the media,” Horenko told the Ukrainska Pravda news site.

“I spoke to the commander-in-chief (General Valery Zaluzhnyi), who was also unable to explain it. The commander-in chief was supposed to make the appropriate submission, but he told he that he didn’t do it. I don’t understand what happened.”

The special forces are believed to be behind the most sophisticated operations Ukraine’s military has conducted in areas under Russian control, in particular Crimea, annexed by Moscow in 2014, eight years before Moscow’s full land invasion.

Recent examples are a strike in September on the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet command in Sevastopol, and attacks on a patrol ship and a submarine stationed in the peninsula.

Ukraine attacks Russian warships in Black Sea, destroys air defences in Crimea

Ukraine said on Thursday (14 September) it attacked two Russian patrol ships and destroyed a sophisticated air defence system in the west of occupied Crimea, ramping up its strikes to challenge Moscow’s dominance in the Black Sea region.

The special forces are also responsible for military information and psychological operations, as well as the organization of resistance in occupied territories.

Zelenskyy this week praised Ukraine’s military for diminishing Moscow’s military strength in the Black Sea through increased air and sea drone attacks on Russian military targets.

The president dismisses Western criticism that Ukraine’s counteroffensive launched in June is proceeding too slowly.

Commander-in-chief Zaluzhniy, in an essay published in The Economist magazine this week, said the war had entered a static, attritional phase, which was to Moscow’s advantage.

Ukraine must innovate as war moves to static, attritional phase, says army chief

Ukraine’s war with Russia is moving towards a new stage of static and attritional fighting, a phase that could allow Moscow to rebuild its military power, Ukraine’s commander-in-chief has said.

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