Syrsky is predicted to resign soon after Yermak’s dismissal
3 December 2025 11:51
OPINION
After the resignation of Andriy Yermak, talks about a possible change of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine , Oleksandr Syrsky, have intensified in government and military circles. Political analyst and former deputy head of the press service of Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma Dmytro Kochetkov claims that such talks have grounds and may lead to personnel decisions, "Komersant Ukrainian" reports.
According to Kochetkov, “without Yermak, Syrsky will not last long.” He emphasizes that the commander-in-chief was a protege of the former head of the Presidential Office:
“First of all, Syrsky is Yermak’s nominee, and this is almost a sentence today.”
Among other reasons that may prompt the change of the commander-in-chief, Kochetkov cites Syrsky’s management style and his interaction with the political leadership.
“Secondly, he was selected primarily by the parameters of obedience and unwillingness to spoil the leadership’s mood with bad news. Accordingly, he makes unfulfilled promises, and then is forced to distort information about the course of hostilities in his favor,” the political scientist adds, claiming that Syrsky allegedly promised the president to clear Pokrovsk “by the end of the month before last.”
A separate part of the criticism concerns approaches to warfare and attitudes toward the military.
“Thirdly, under Syrsky, the Armed Forces have finally turned into a Soviet army with disregard for the lives and health of servicemen and in which initiative is punished. Syrsky turned out to be very sensitive to the popularity of some of his subordinates and prone to their administrative oppression,” the expert believes.
He cites the situation at the front as another argument.
“Fourthly, the enemy’s creeping offensive cannot be stopped despite all the extraordinary efforts. And this is an irrefutable argument for the United States to force Ukraine to make territorial concessions: give up Donbas, because the Russians are moving forward and will capture it anyway,” Kochetkov writes.
According to him, the change of commander may be fundamental, but it will not solve all the problems, because in addition to manpower, our army lacks both strategic and tactical thinking.
Other accusations
Earlier, Syrsky was accused of ineffective management, personnel chaos, and appointing loyal and obedient commanders to leadership positions instead of experienced combat officers.
In particular,the officer of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Texas stated that a significant part of the military has a sharply negative perception of the management system that was formed after large-scale personnel reshuffles initiated by Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrsky. According to him, the problem is not so much in individuals as in “a command model based on intimidation, lies and blind formalism.”
Yuriy Butusov, in turn, argued that the management system in the Armed Forces is based on irresponsibility, and that it is impossible to hold back the front using the methods “used by the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, Oleksandr Syrsky.”
MP Mariana Bezuhla is also a constant critic of Syrskyi . One of her latest accusations against the Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief concerned the Dobropillya counteroffensive.
According to the MP, the Dobropillya counter-offensive operation is “separate stabilization actions with partial success due to the weakening of other areas.”
“At first, they allowed a breakthrough and lied that there was no breakthrough; then they lied that there was only a “leakage”; then the lie suddenly jumped to a whole counteroffensive on our part, surrounding 100,500 Russians who suddenly accumulated from the “leakage”. Soon they will be singing about the scale of the 2023 counteroffensive. Shall I remind you how the lie ended in 2023?” she wrote on Facebook.
Oleksandr Syrsky
Oleksandr Syrskyi
Oleksandr Syrskyi has been the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine since February 2024. He replaced Valeriy Zaluzhnyi.
- Rank: Colonel General (since August 2020).
- Awards: Hero of Ukraine (awarded in March 2022 for the successful defense of Kyiv).
Syrsky about the front
Three weeks ago, Syrsky announced that Russia was building up its forces near Pokrovsk and trying to break through the Ukrainian defense line.
He also denied statements about the alleged fall of Pokrovsk or the encirclement of Ukrainian units.
His most recent statements include assurances that“the Ukrainian Armed Forces have managed to significantly improve the tactical situation in Kupyansk.”
