By David Sole
Only six days after firing Ukraine’s Defense Minister, President Zelensky finished getting rid of top military officials by sacking Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrsky on July 21. These dismissals come at a time of continuing Ukrainian military setbacks across all fronts in the war with the Russian Federation.
The Ukrainian propaganda machine and its Western media cheerleaders have recently been announcing a “turn for the better” for Ukraine’s battlefield fortunes. One could ask, if this were true, why fire the chief architects of military strategy. However, Ukraine is not showing any sign of reversing its failures. Russia is now slowly closing in on the last Ukrainian strongholds of Kramatorsk and Slavyansk in the Donetsk People’s Republic.
Both Ukraine and the Western media have been applauding dramatic long-range drone attacks into Russian territory which, in fact, have no military significance at the front lines. With thousands of European supplied drones and U.S./NATO provided satellite guidance, Ukraine has sent hundreds of explosive drones into Russia on a daily basis. Most of these are successfully shot down before reaching their targets.
Very few drones are able to get through the multiple layers of Russian air defenses. Military targets are especially well defended. So Ukraine has turned to easier, non-military targets. In the past week nine giant warehouses of the Wildberries company have been struck with many reported civilian casualties. Wildberries is the Russian equivalent of Amazon and has no military significance.
Peaceful relations between Ukraine and Russia continued for over two decades following the end of the Soviet Union and the recognition of Ukrainian independence in 1991. But U.S. imperialism, in seeking to expand NATO right to the borders of Russia, organized the Maidan uprising in February 2014 which installed an ultra-right coup in Kiev. The U.S. and European powers immediately set to work building up a Ukrainian military based on fascist militias and Western supplied armament. The goal was to provoke a proxy war that would either cause regime change in Moscow or at least weaken Russia.
General Syrsky was promoted to lead Ukraine’s military when the former commander, Valerii Zaluzhny, was fired by Zelensky in February 2024. Zaluzhny, in his turn, had also been unable to stop Russian victories at the front. Syrsky has had no better luck. A string of cities have fallen to the Russians during his term, including Avdiivka and Pokrovsk.
Syrsky also carried out the invasion of Russia’s Kursk Province on August 6, 2024 occupying an estimated 400 square miles. This maneuver diverted tens of thousands of Ukraine’s most experienced fighters and heavy arms away from more pressing battles along the front. By March 2025 the Ukrainians were driven out from Kursk with heavy losses.
The shuffling of military commanders cannot reverse the continuing defeat of Ukrainian forces. But it will guarantee that Ukraine will continue to lose lives and treasure in the doomed war it is fighting for Western imperialism. And the longer the war continues there is a serious danger of a wider war breaking out.
