Zelenskyy fires Ukraine’s top general Zaluzhny

The two had strong differences over how the war should be fought.

"I thanked him for two years of defense of Ukraine," Zelenskyy said on social media | Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images

KYIV — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Thursday removed Valery Zaluzhny as the country's military commander-in-chief — ending months of tensions between the two.

"I thanked him for two years of defense of Ukraine," Zelenskyy said on social media, adding: "We also discussed who could be in the renewed leadership of the Armed Forces of Ukraine."

Zaluzhny will be replaced by General Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander of Ukrainian ground forces who is seen as closer to the president.

"The year 2024 can be successful for Ukraine only if there are effective changes in the basis of our defense," Zelenskyy said.

The president added that he proposed that Zaluzhny "remain part of the team."

In his own message, Zaluzhny said: "A decision was made about the need to change approaches and strategy."

Zaluzhny, 50, gained enormous credit for spearheading the successful effort by Ukraine's outgunned forces to halt and then reverse Russia's initial attack launched on Feb. 24, 2002.

The Armed Forces of Ukraine (ZSU) succeeded in pushing back initial Russian advances near the capital Kyiv, and then led successful counteroffensives later in 2022 freeing parts of eastern and southern Ukraine. Both Zaluzhny and Syrskyi played key roles in those campaigns.

"The ZSU under Zaluzhny survived the initial Russian onslaught. Alone that was a great achievement — because almost everybody, and thus [Russian President Vladimir] Putin too, expected the ZSU to fold and run away," said

Austrian military analyst Tom Cooper.

But his record was tarnished by the failure of last year's counteroffensive, which ran into well-prepared Russians defenses.

The president and his top general increasingly differed over strategy and also clashed over Zaluzhny's growing popularity, which made him a potential political threat to Zelenskyy.

Zaluzhny has pressed for a new conscription law that would increase the size of the military, but the legislation is politically fraught and Zelenskyy has taken a hands-off attitude.

Zaluzhny has also taken an increasingly grim view of the war, which clashes with Zelenskyy's effort to show that Ukraine is making good progress as a way of ensuring Kyiv's allies stay committed.

In an essay for the Economist lsat year that infuriated Zelenskyy, Zaluzhny compared the state of the conflict to a stalemate like the First World War.

Zaluzhny was appointed commander-in-chief in July 2021, just half a year before Russia launched its all-out invasion.

He has tried to break with Ukraine's Soviet military traditions and bring Ukraine into line with NATO standards. He also called on Ukraine to leverage its advantage in areas like drone warfare to make up for Russia's superiority in men and weapons.