Ukrainians trusted their top general more than anyone else in uniform. A December 2023 poll gave General Valerii Zaluzhnyi a 92% trust rating, and 72% said they would disapprove of replacing him. Zelensky replaced him anyway, on Feb. 8, 2024.
The president announced it in a video address. “I appointed Colonel General Syrskyi as the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine,” he said. Zelensky had also posted a photo of himself with Zaluzhnyi, along with a message: “I met with General Zaluzhnyi, thanked him for two years of service.” Presidential decrees followed later that day.
Two popular men, one war
The split took months to show. The early win near Kyiv, then the autumn 2022 offensives around Kharkiv and Kherson, made Zaluzhnyi, now 50, enormously popular. Fans called him the “Ukrainian Eisenhower”. Ukrainian media had carried rumours since summer 2022 that Zelensky’s office worried about that popularity, according to the Kyiv Independent, though Zaluzhnyi never said he wanted a political career.
In November 2023, Zelensky told The Sun that soldiers should not mix war with politics. “If a military man decided to do politics, it is his right, then he should enter politics,” he said. That month the Kyiv Independent got a look at a poll said to have been ordered by the president’s office. In it Zelensky would get 47% in a first round of voting and Zaluzhnyi 30%. Zelensky would win a run-off by just 2%, within the margin of error. The pro-Zelensky Telegram channel that leaked the numbers left out that run-off graph.
The stalemate remark
The open disagreement was about the war itself. Zaluzhnyi described the fighting to the Economist as a “stalemate”, which cut against Zelensky’s uncompromising public stance. Ukraine’s counteroffensive had failed to win back the ground Kyiv hoped for, and a long-expected push over the summer left much of the 600-mile front line barely moving.
Neither man addressed the tension directly. Aides issued brief denials or blamed Russian disinformation. On Feb. 4, in an interview with Italy’s Rai News, Zelensky confirmed that a sweeping shake-up of Ukraine’s leadership was coming, possibly well beyond the military.
The last days
Speculation peaked in the final 10 days before the announcement. The Independent reported that at a meeting the week before, Zelensky is understood to have asked the general to resign. He refused. Zelensky said he proposed that Zaluzhnyi stay on the team, and called their conversation “frank”.
Foreign officials responded quickly. On Feb. 8 the White House’s John Kirby, who speaks for the National Security Council, said “President Zelensky is the commander-in-chief of his Armed Forces, he gets to decide who his leadership is going to be”. Syrskyi, until then the commander of land forces, was credited with a role in the Kharkiv counterattack of 2022.
Sources
- Are Zelensky and his top general really in discord?
- Ukraine war latest: Zelensky dismisses Zaluzhnyi, appoints Syrskyi to lead Armed Forces
- Zelensky fires his army chief in major shake-up of Ukraine’s military | The Independent
