However, the Moscow army has been persecuted by the Ukrainian resistance, with its infantry unable to claim many cities as captured despite being nearly annihilated by Russian artillery.
It is likely that General Dvornikov simply took too long to capture Donbas, which has been Putin’s priority since he failed to capture Kyiv in March, said Samuel Ramani, an associate member of the Royal United Services Institute in London.
“Dvornikov was given a target date on June 10 to conquer Severodonetsk and, although he incurred that deadline, he used his Aleppo-style offensive tactics,” he said.
Ramani also described the dismissal of General Serdyukov as commander of Russia’s airborne units as “an impressive disappearance.”
General Serdyukov had commanded about 2,000 Russian paratroopers in January when they were deployed to Kazakhstan to help crush the riots. The Kremlin considered the mission to have been a great success and General Serdyukov had been assigned to the promotion.
Putin has been accused of micromanaging military operations from the Kremlin, frustrating generals who have complained that he is incompetent. Rumors have been circulating for weeks that he had quarreled with General Dvornikov in particular.
In a YouTube interview earlier this month, one of the leading journalists in the British open source investigative journalism group Bellingcat, Christo Grozev, said it was known that General Dvornikov was a heavy drinker and that agents who they worked with him in Syria they didn’t. trust him.
“Dvornikov’s reputation in Syria within the army was not very high. They exposed to the public that he was a tough strategist, but they already knew that his ability to coordinate different types of troops was not very high,” he said. alcohol in excess and decides situations, such as when to start the war., in the middle of the night without any intelligence support “.