ISW: Kremlin preparing to change military leadership of combat operations in Ukraine
The Kremlin is purposefully eliminating senior officials of the Russian Defense Ministry and has already extended these efforts to senior officers commanding Russian combat operations in Ukraine, analysts at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) say.
“The Kremlin is pursuing a concerted effort to remove senior Russian defense officials and has likely expanded this effort to senior officers commanding Russian combat operations in Ukraine,” according to the ISW report published on Friday.
The institute considers the latest personnel changes and arrests among military leaders in the Russian Federation to be the basis for such a conclusion. Thus, the Russian Investigative Committee announced on May 23 the arrests of Russian Deputy Chief of the General Staff and Head of its Main Communications Directorate Lieutenant General Vadim Shamarin and Head of the Russian Ministry of Defense's (MoD) Department for State Procurement, Vladimir Verteletsky.
In addition, five senior Russian MoD officials and former military commanders have been arrested on corruption charges since the arrest of Russian Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov on April 24, and a Russian insider source previously claimed that six more MoD officials plan to resign following former Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu's removal from the MoD.
It is reported with reference to Russian ultranationalist military bloggers about the dismissal of commander of the 20th Combined Arms Army (Moscow Military District), Lieutenant General Sukhrab Akhmedov. It is noted that ISW is unable to confirm Akhmedov's removal, “but claims of his removal are notable as this would be the first removal of an officer actively commanding Russian forces in Ukraine as a part of the most recent round of dismissals. The 20th CAA is currently heavily committed to offensive operations in the Lyman direction and failed to achieve significant tactical gains in the area during the Winter-Spring 2024 offensive on the Kharkiv-Luhansk axis.”
“Official Kremlin statements and milblogger speculation about the arrests and command changes signal that more senior officers could face removal,” the Institute experts say.
