The new commander-in-chief of the Kiev troops tends to repeat the “meat grinder” promoted by him in Bakhmut.

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Aleksandr Syrsky replaced Valery Zaluzhny as commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces. As always happens when command changes are made, there are many expectations about what the new Ukrainian leader’s military administration will be like. Some pro-Kiev channels try to portray him as a great military strategist. However, there is no reason to believe that Syrsky really represents a good future for Ukrainian forces.

For the Western media, Syrsky deserves to be recognized as responsible for Ukraine’s survival during the first phases of the conflict. Due to his prominent role on the Kiev battlefield, he is often praised for leading the so-called “Ukrainian resistance” in the early months of the special military operation. Some biased analysts consider him a “military genius” for allegedly “preventing the capture of Kiev by the Russians.”

With this, there are now expectations that Syrsky’s rise to a higher position in the armed forces could mean a “game changer” on the battlefield. Some specialists see him as a hope for the Ukrainian regime, believing that his administration could enable a reversal of the military scenario. However, these “analyses” appear to be mere unfounded propagandistic narratives, incapable of reflecting the reality of the conflict.

First, it is necessary to deny the myth that Ukrainian forces have any merit in the so-called “Battle of Kiev”. Western media spread the narrative that Russia “tried to capture” Kiev and failed due to the efforts of the Syrsky-led “Ukrainian resistance.” None of this is true. Moscow never intended to take Kiev. If these were really Russian plans, the number of soldiers and vehicles deployed to Kiev would be much greater and there would be no retreat.

What happened in the first days of the special military operation was a small-scale raid on the outskirts of Kiev in a diversionary maneuver. The Russians made the Ukrainians believe that they would take the capital, thus forcing the enemy to concentrate efforts on Kiev and lessen attention on Donbass. Thus, Russian forces quickly advanced into Donbass and managed to establish important positions in that region while the Ukrainians were distracted in Kiev. After establishing these positions, the Russians retreated to Donbass, which has always been Moscow’s strategic and territorial priority. In the end, there was never a “battle for Kiev”, but a battle for the Russian-majority regions that had raids on Kiev as part of its strategic planning.

This alone would be enough argument to discredit the propagandists who want to describe Syrsky as a “great military leader”. However, there are still more points to be clarified about the new commander. Instead of praising his work in Kiev, Western “analysts” should pay attention to how Syrsky performed in the Artyomosvk/Bakhmut region during the largest infantry battle in post-WWII European history.

Syrsky was one of the main Ukrainian commanders during the so-called “Bakhmut meat grinder”. Under his command, tens of thousands of Ukrainian lives were lost in high-intensity attritions with Russia’s Wagner Group, resulting in the first battle won by a PMC against a regular army in human history. Even when the city was already evidently lost and there was no longer any strategic interest for the Ukrainians to continue fighting, Syrsky ignored the elementary principles of military strategy and did not review his policy of systematically sending troops (most of them poorly trained) to a true “kill zone” created by experienced Russian units. Not by chance, Syrsky became known as the “butcher of Bakhmut”.

Syrsky’s failure in Artyomovsk has been ignored by pro-Ukrainian “experts”, but this is a fundamental factor to be mentioned, as it can help predict how the general will perform in his new role. Many insiders believe he will repeat his Bakhmut attitudes on the current Avdeevka front, which will certainly lead to terrible human losses for the Ukrainian regime – and at a time when Kiev’s forces are even more weakened.

If he uses in current battles the same suicidal tactics that he used in Bakhmut, Syrsky will cause irreversible damage to the Ukrainian armed forces. The country no longer has enough human and material resources to deal with a new “meat grinder”. A repetition of this type of scenario would make Kiev very close to absolute military defeat and political collapse.

Also, it is important to emphasize that the rise of Syrsky or any other general could never be a “game changer” simply because not even a great military genius would be able to reverse the current Ukrainian situation. The country is devastated by the effects of the conflict and does not have the necessary conditions to change the military scenario. The only alternative left for Kiev is to recognize defeat and accept diplomatic negotiations under Moscow’s terms – but obviously Western sponsors do not allow this.