Personnel purges in the Armed Forces of Ukraine: Why Zelensky is changing military leadership

Personnel purges in the Armed Forces of Ukraine: Why Zelensky is changing military leadership

Commander-in-Chief Volodymyr Zelensky dismissed another top commander of the Armed Forces. And this is not the first high-profile personnel decision in recent times.

25 August, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky, by his decrees, dismissed Special Operations Forces commander Lieutenant General Ihor Lunio and appointed Major General Hryhorii Halahan to this position.

There is no logic to this move, since the Special Operations Forces (SOF, military special forces) are a relatively new branch in Ukraine that is currently going through a period of establishment and active development, and Lieutenant General Lunio, who led the SOF from their creation in January 2016, handled this excellently.

Under his leadership last summer the first SOF unit of the Armed Forces of Ukraine completed certification and stood on duty in the NATO Response Force (NRF).

Moreover — only on 28 July Lieutenant General Lunio reported that preparations were underway to certify a second such unit to NATO standards. And then — like a thunderbolt out of a clear sky — resignation. One might ask: why replace a commander who is in his post, willing to work, and delivering quality results? In other words, why break a mechanism that works perfectly?

Zelensky himself explained his move by saying that under the ceasefire that is now in effect, the objectives of the Joint Forces Operation have changed and, consequently, so have the tasks of the Special Operations Forces.

"There will be more provocations from pro-Russian militants, so both the command and the personnel of the SOF must work more on preventing them and on preventive measures. It is necessary to implement more aggressive countermeasures to the challenges that arise — to respond adequately to provocative actions by the enemy," he emphasized.

It all looks as if a production leader (and under Lunio the SOF advanced toward NATO cooperation perhaps more than any other branch) is being dismissed with the designation: "For unsatisfactory results."

And the point is not even that instead of a career special forces officer, a career SBU officer will now lead the special operations troops (nothing wrong with that personally, but the profiles are somewhat different). The point is that such a personnel shake-up in itself is, if not a step backward, then at best a stall.

There are rumors that the initiative to dismiss the most NATO-oriented military commander came from the head of the President’s Office, Andrii Yermak. And somehow, in light of recent events and trends, that does not surprise at all. Moreover — if true, it fits very well into Yermak’s policy, conditionally called: "Don’t provoke Russia."

But it is not only Lieutenant General Lunio. One could even say he was neither the first nor will he be the last. Let us recall all of Volodymyr Zelensky’s major personnel decisions related to the army. In chronological order.

Chief of the General Staff

The day after his inauguration, 21 May 2019 year, Zelensky dismissed Viktor Muzhenko from the position of Chief of the General Staff and appointed Lieutenant General Ruslan Khomchak in his place; Khomchak received his general’s epaulettes from former President Viktor Yanukovych, when the Defense Ministry was run by Russian appointees Dmytro Salamatin and Pavlo Lebediev.

At the same time, although Khomchak received his general’s epaulettes before the war, he went through one of the hottest military operations during the entire ATO period — the Ilovaisk cauldron, from which he exited via the notorious "green corridor," but with arms in hand.

Be that as it may, within the army Khomchak was called a sharp opponent of Soviet-era practices at the time of his promotion, and his appointment was expected to bring serious changes. However, significant shifts did not occur.

Commander of the Joint Forces Operation (JFO)

5 August 2019 year President Volodymyr Zelensky dismissed Alexander Syrskyi, who had been appointed only in May, from the post of JFO commander. In his place, Volodymyr Kravchenko became the new JFO commander.

As is known, the JFO commander is appointed on a rotational basis for a one-year term, so last May Petro Poroshenko replaced Serhii Naiev with Alexander Syrskyi. However, Syrskyi did not have time to prove himself in the post.

Lieutenant General Volodymyr Kravchenko previously served as chief of staff of the North Operational Command of the Ground Forces. During active hostilities in Donbas he commanded Sector A (Luhansk region) and, according to fighters’ reviews, established himself as a worthy combat officer. In particular, under his command the operation to defend Luhansk Airport in April 2014 and the breakout to relieve and free Ukrainian troops from encirclement in August–September of the same year were planned and carried out.

At the same time, it was Kravchenko who last fall led the JFO during the shameful unilateral withdrawal of forces and assets at three sections of the separation line (Stanytsia Luhanska, Zolote, and Petrivske), and he is the one heading the operation now, during the "complete and comprehensive cessation of hostilities" regime.

Minister of Defense

29 August 2019 year, during its first session the Verkhovna Rada of the 19th convocation made a number of personnel appointments. At the president’s submission, Andrii Zahorodniuk was appointed head of the Defense Ministry.

At the time of his appointment Zahorodniuk seemed a rather controversial candidate. On the one hand, since 2014 he had been engaged in civic activities, including volunteering for the Armed Forces. In 2015–2017 years he served as head of the Defense Ministry’s Reform Project Office, which was associated with almost all the positive shifts in the Ukrainian army in recent years, including reform of the Armed Forces’ food supply. On the other hand, Zahorodniuk’s father was a business partner of Ihor Kolomoisky, so there were suspicions he would lobby the interests of the disgraced oligarch.

But just as Zahorodniuk began to establish himself as a fairly adequate reform-minded minister, Zelensky dismissed him and on 4 March 2020 year pushed through the Verkhovna Rada the appointment of 65-year-old Kuchma-era general Andrii Taran as minister of defense, who had already retired.

By the way, Depo.ua sources already reported at the time that Taran was a creature of the new head of the President’s Office, Andrii Yermak, known for his peacemaking initiatives that border on capitulation. According to another version, the Taran family lived for a long time next door to the Zelensky family in Kryvyi Rih.

Be that as it may, six months of Taran’s tenure as defense minister can already safely be called a rollback not only compared to Stepan Poltorak, but also compared to Zahorodniuk.

Commander of the Naval Forces

12 June 2020 year Zelensky changed the commander of the Naval Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine — instead of Admiral Ihor Voronchenko, appointed by Poroshenko, the Navy was led by Rear Admiral Oleksii Neizhpapa.

This appointment, perhaps the only one listed that stands out positively. Not in the sense that Neizhpapa is better than Voronchenko, but in that he was accepted normally within the navy. The decision led neither to a rollback nor to a stall. At least so far.

Neizhpapa had been Voronchenko’s right-hand man since 2015, so here one can observe a certain continuity in the transfer of authority. In the best sense of those words — when a leader prepares his successor for years and at the appointed moment hands over affairs to a trained person who continuously continues the move forward.

Overall, it has long been obvious that Zelensky’s personnel policy in defense boils down to replacing all top cadres from the Poroshenko era. The main thing is that the new managers are loyal and ready to follow any orders.

At the same time, dismissing senior military officers for political reasons contradicts international standards and violates NATO protocols. And then our commanders shrug and say that for some reason no one is "waiting" for us in the alliance.

Ruslan RUDOMSKYI