Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has announced the resignation of 50-year-old Valery Zaluzhny, who has led the country's armed forces for more than two years. The president himself announced this in his address to the citizens.
Having met with Zaluzhny half an hour earlier, Zelensky expressed his gratitude to him for his work.
Oleksandr Syrsky was appointed as the new head. The tense relations between Zelensky and Zaluzhny intensified in November 2023, but the resignation did not take place then. On January 29, 2024, Zelensky summoned Zaluzhny and announced his intention to dismiss him, but the decree to this effect was not signed until February 8.
Before his release, Zaluzhny published his program column on CNN, in which he outlined his vision of the war and a plan for changes in the army for the next six months.
The long-running conflict between Ukraine’s military and political leadership has escalated in recent months, especially amid discussions about the possible resignation of Valeriy Zaluzhny, who enjoys higher levels of public support than the president himself. This situation has caused considerable anxiety in society. Ukrainian and Western analysts have been actively discussing the threat of a major crisis of trust between the country’s military and political leadership.
Zaluzhny, who has more than 20 years of military service under his belt, was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in July 2021 by order of President Volodymyr Zelensky. In an interview with Time magazine, he described his impressions of the appointment as a “blow below the belt” that had a knock-out effect on him.
Zaluzhny led the Ukrainian army during Russia's full-scale invasion that began in February 2022. Although the Ukrainian government has been criticized for its lack of preparation for the war, experts acknowledge that the country was able to resist Russian aggression thanks to Zaluzhny's actions. He organized the secret redeployment of Ukrainian military resources, including aviation and air defense, and developed a plan to repel the aggression.
The New Yorker magazine claims that Valeriy Zaluzhny hid military training even from President Volodymyr Zelensky and Kyiv's American partners.
According to this information, Zaluzhny did not inform Zelensky about the preparations for fear that the president, not believing in the possibility of an invasion, might demand that the preparations be curtailed. As for the Americans, he also hid information because he was afraid that they would tell Zelensky and others about these actions.
During almost two years of full-scale war with Russia, Zaluzhny became a popular figure both in Ukrainian society and in the West.
He was highly regarded by his Western colleagues, and photo collages and memes featuring him were actively shared online, recognizing his contribution to Ukraine's first visible victories, such as the defeat of the Russians near Kyiv, the sinking of the Russian cruiser Moskva, and the liberation of Kherson and the Kharkiv region in the fall of 2022.
Against this background, discussions began about Zaluzhny's prospects as a politician and a potential competitor to President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Over the past year, Ukraine's successes on the front have practically disappeared - the expected counteroffensive, during which the Ukrainian authorities promised to liberate, if not Crimea, then the entire Kherson region and Zaporizhia region, did not yield results.
November 2023 was marked by the publication of an article and interview by Valeriy Zaluzhny in the British magazine The Economist, which caused a wave and the subsequent movement of events that led to his dismissal. In this address, Zaluzhny admitted for the first time that the Ukrainian offensive had ended without the expected successes, and the calculation of the exhaustion of the Russians was erroneous from the very beginning.
He expressed his vision for the necessary technological changes in the country, taking into account the mistakes of past years, and also identified the need for support from Western partners.
Zaluzhny emphasized the dependence of the fate of the war on the position and supplies of the West, but at the same time noted that much of this also depends on the political leadership of Ukraine.
After that, rumors appeared about Zaluzhny's possible resignation and his conflict with President Zelensky, who had a different view of the course of the war.
The president's team denied the information about this conflict, but the situation was deepening. This tension was significantly intensified by the stable support for Zaluzhny and the president's declining rating, which was recorded in social polls.
The last significant confrontation between Zelensky and Zaluzhny was a dispute over the draft law on mobilization. The president did not want to take responsibility for this, trying to shift it to the military leadership.
The bill has not yet been passed and has been resubmitted to parliament, but it is unknown when it will be passed.
The president's decision could also have been influenced by the situation with the possible shooting down of a Russian Il-76 plane near Belgorod. According to the Russians, there may have been Ukrainian prisoners on board. The General Staff admitted that the downing of the plane could have been caused by the actions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, but Russia did not provide evidence of the presence of prisoners.
In the context of rumors about a possible resignation, on February 1, the American publication CNN published a column by the commander-in-chief, in which he expressed his vision of the war and changes in the troops, and also criticized shortcomings in the mobilization system and the work of the defense industry.
Previously, political analysts emphasized that the decision to dismiss Valery Zaluzhny would be a serious political mistake on the part of President Zelensky, and this could lead to the creation of a strong political competitor for him.
“Attempting to fire Zaluzhny would be the president’s most fatal mistake. This is the worst thing he could do. This would automatically make Zaluzhny his main competitor,” political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko emphasized in the fall of 2023.
According to a survey by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS), conducted in late November-early December 2023, Ukrainians' trust in the Armed Forces of Ukraine remained unchanged at a high level (96%) throughout another year of war.
Although the majority of Ukrainians continue to trust President Volodymyr Zelensky, their number has decreased significantly. While in December 2022, 84% trusted him, by the end of 2023 this figure had dropped to 62%.
A separate KIIS study in 2023 focused on trust in Commander-in-Chief Zaluzhny. In the second year of the war, 88% of Ukrainians trusted him. However, attitudes towards President Zelensky and Zaluzhny were on the same level - trust in each of them was 59%.
How will Ukrainian society accept the resignation of the popular commander-in-chief, often called “the father of Zaluzhny”? According to a KIIS poll conducted in December, 72% of Ukrainians do not support replacing Zaluzhny with another general (only 2% support this idea).
