Syrsky is out of favour with Bankova: who will become the new head of the bank if he resigns
20 June 2024 09:01
Ukraine may soon face important personnel changes among its top military leadership.
According to Komersant ukrayinskyi 
According to insider information, Syrskyi was ready to resign from his post in early May (on his own initiative) and wrote a letter of resignation. This coincided with the period of intensified hostilities and enemy attacks in the Kharkiv region.
Information about Syrsky’s dismissal has also been actively discussed by popular bloggers and experts on their YouTube channels for several weeks.
For example, one of the first to share this information publicly was Yuriy Shvets, a popular blogger, former Soviet intelligence officer, KGB major, Putin’s groupmate (according to him), and now a military analyst and constant critic of the head of the Presidential Office.
Yuriy Shvets also said, citing his own sources, that Syrsky could be fired precisely because of the crisis that has arisen in the Presidential Office.
“According to sources from Washington and London, at least 2 sources from people who deal with Ukraine in the military sphere report that there is a very acute crisis in Yermak’s Office. And it should be resolved by the replacement of Commander-in-Chief Syrsky in the very near future,” Shvets said,
– shvets said.
Although at one time, it was Syrskyi who was called Andriy Yermak ‘s “man” by a number of experts and pointed to a long-standing crisis in communications between the then Commander-in-Chief Valeriy Zaluzhnyi and the permanent head of the Presidential Office. What has changed since then is unknown, but it seems that General Syrskyi is losing, or has already lost, his favourite position. At least, this is what the information coming from the sources indicates.
A holy place is never empty
The high probability of personnel rotations in the leadership of the Armed Forces is also evidenced by the fact that the names of specific military personnel who are running for the post of commander-in-chief instead of Syrsky are already known.
Among them are Lieutenant General Yevhen Moysiuk and the current head of Ukrainian intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov.
The information about the possible appointment of Lieutenant General Yevhen Moysiuk as the Chief of the Main Command was confirmed by former MP Boryslav Bereza in an exclusive comment to Komersant Ukrainskyi
“A month ago I said that instead of Syrskyy, Moisyuk would replace him, and instead of Umerov, Khomchak would replace him. I was told this on Bankova Street. Given that I have not received any new messages, it is only a matter of time,”
– he said.
According to Boryslav Bereza, large-scale personnel changes in the military leadership are not the right time and could cause serious damage to the Armed Forces:
“I am not a sympathiser of Syrskyi, but I believe that the third replacement of the chief of the army in a few months will only harm the Armed Forces of Ukraine and further contribute to the loss of control. This will have bad consequences for the country’s defence.”
At the same time, Boryslav Bereza believes that the problem is not in the names of the commanders-in-chief, but in their powers and real capabilities to make strategically important decisions that have real consequences on the battlefield;
“The replacement may take place because there is a lot of bad news, and the government wants only victories and ratings. But the war consists of more than that. If they replace Syrsky with Moysiuk, it will just be a replacement of the commander-in-chief. The question is not in the names, the question is what resources he will have, what he will do, and in fact the question is that he will be limited to virtually the same problems as the current command of Ukraine.”
Military expert Mykhailo Zhyrokhov believes that no one will dismiss Syrsky now, and all the talk around his name is just a rumour.
However, in the event of a real personnel rotation, he does not see any “betrayal” in this.
“These are just rumours. At the same time, in any case, I do not consider it (the possible replacement of Syrsky – ed.) a ‘betrayal’. Different things happen during wars. During the Second World War, the commander-in-chiefs of Germany, Britain, and the USSR changed. So there is no threat in this. But a personnel change definitely does not improve the situation in the army. It’s important for people to know who is in charge of them, and it’s important to respect those in charge,”
– he said.
Meanwhile, in the Verkhovna Rada, information about Syrskyi’s dismissal is being denied and rejected, making it clear that criticism of Syrskyi by Servant of the People MP Mariana Bezuhla is unfounded and subjective.
“Except for the sore head of an individual MP, no one is discussing this,”
– fedir Venislavskyi, a member of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on National Security, Defence and Intelligence, told Komersant ukrainskyi
Political analyst Igor Reiterovich shares the same opinion.
“This MP (Bezuhla – ed.) wrote on her Facebook page that Moysiuk is one of the candidates. She also criticises Syrskyi. But her statements are more like a painful exaggeration of her importance, as if she knows something for sure somewhere,”
– reuters reported.
In his opinion, no one will replace Syrsky now.
“As of today, there are no real intentions to replace the commander-in-chief. To replace Syrsky now would be to openly admit a mistake, because then the question arises – why was Zaluzhnyi replaced? I think there will be no such changes now. Only catastrophic events at the front can radically change this situation, but we hope this will not happen,” he concluded,
– he summarised.
Personnel rotation of the Commanders-in-Chief
on 8 February 2024, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi dismissed Valeriy Zaluzhnyi from the post of Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and appointed Colonel-General Oleksandr Syrskyi, who had previously commanded the Land Forces, to replace him.
Later it became known that the President had awarded Zaluzhnyi the title of Hero of Ukraine. And in March, Volodymyr Zelenskyy approved the candidacy of the former Armed Forces chief for the post of Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ukraine to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Despite this, Zaluzhnyi has not yet left for London for unknown reasons.
Meanwhile, when the announcement of Zaluzhny’s dismissal was still “in the air”, The Washington Post wrote that Syrsky was particularly disliked among ordinary soldiers. He is seen by many as a Soviet-style commander who kept troops under fire in Bakhmut for too long when Ukraine was supposed to withdraw.
Despite this, he nevertheless took up his duties and is now the commander-in-chief.
As for Yevhen Moysiuk, who is predicted to take over from Syrsky, he has been the Special Commissioner for the Implementation of International Security Assurances and Development of the Ukrainian Defence Forces since February this year.
Prior to that, he was Valeriy Zaluzhny’s deputy, served as the commander of the Air Assault Forces from 2019 to 2021, and even earlier worked as the first deputy commander of the Air Assault Forces.
