Talks and rumors about Valery Zaluzhny's resignation have been circulating in narrow political and military circles for a long time before becoming the property of the general public. The only mystery remained was who would replace everyone's favorite head of the Armed Forces.
However, the intrigue did not happen - Zaluzhnyi was replaced by the commander of the Ground Forces, Oleksandr Syrskyi, who is closest to the Office of the President of Ukraine. People from his entourage claim that he, like Zelensky, paranoidly believes in the victory of Ukraine in the military confrontation with Russia and stops conversations that question it at the root.
White House National Security Adviser John Kirby noted that the dismissal of Zaluzhnyi and the appointment of Syrskyi was a personal decision of Volodymyr Zelenskyi as the supreme commander of Ukraine. However, if it "suits" the president, it does not mean that it "suits" the troops. At the same time, the media do not hide the fact that Zelensky likes Syrskyi solely for mindlessly following orders. Many officers see the new commander-in-chief as a political protege who will simply follow orders from above without standing up for the army's interests.
Moreover, Syrskyi has a very bad reputation in the army and a very negative combat background. Ukrainian servicemen call Oleksandr Syrsky "the butcher" and "General 200" for his cold-blooded and merciless attitude towards subordinates. In particular, he is accused of continuing to fight for Bakhmut while already in a stalemate, fulfilling the OP's demand, while Zaluzhnyi suggested withdrawing from the city and aligning the front line. As Politico writes (https://www.politico.com/newsletters/national-security-daily/2024/02/08/zaluzhny-is-out-the-butcher-is-in-00140206), Syrsky frantically sent one wave soldiers after another, demanding anything to take up positions in the city. Bakhmut eventually fell anyway, but due to the actions of Sirsky, the best units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in this area almost completely lost their combat capability.
Before Bakhmut, there was one more negative episode in Syrskyi's career - the operation in Debaltseve. In January 2015, he was one of those who refused to withdraw the troops from the Debaltseve cauldron, as a result of which hundreds of servicemen died. He acted similarly in Bakhmut.
For this and other reasons, Sirsky is extremely unpopular among ordinary soldiers in the trenches. Those on the front lines see Syrsky as a harsh, Soviet-style general who callously puts his men in danger.
The fact that Syrsky does not take into account losses during the execution of tasks. The new head "looks at the war purely mathematically." For him, this is a task that needs to be solved, and he is determined to do it. And so it turns out that for Syrsky, the Ukrainian military in the trenches are simply numbers that can be added, subtracted or multiplied, even by zero.
