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ZelenskyThe backbone of the war behind the war
Washington, Moscow and most countries in the world are expected to destroy Ukrainian troops within a few days.
But Valeriy Zaluzhnyy, commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, thought that he planned and led the battle, which so far has left the Russian army bleeding, defeated and chaotic retreat.
If Ukraine's surprising military achievements so far-protected the capital Kiev and defended most other major cities in the Russian offensive - it can be attributed to one person, it is Zaluzine.
This round-faced 48-year-old general was born in a military family. In July 2021, he was appointed as the country's highest military commander by President Zelensky. Zalugine and other Ukrainian commanders have been preparing for a total war with Russia since 2014.
is not like the "Stormin' Norman" who led the US army in First Gulf War [Stormin' Norman] —— Norman Schwartzkopf , nor is it like David Petraeus, who was called "King of David" in Iraq War , Zaluzine largely avoids the scene of celebrity commanders.
He gave the role to Zelensky, who was a former actor and comedy performer, attracted the public's imagination.
In many ways, Zalujne is the epitome of a new generation of Ukrainian officers who honed themselves in the arduous eight years of Donbas . Once they were not on the front line, they were deployed to training bases across Europe to exercise with NATO troops.
These experiences have worn away many of the adverse effects of decades of rigid Soviet military training.
This collaboration with NATO has shaped a group of professional officers who are eager to meet Western standards and help build a decentralized, powerful, and more flexible way of war than the Russian model. And so far, the Russian model has been struggling in the quagmire of Ukraine.
"I probably can talk about Zaluzine not just as a person, but as a representative of the new generation of Ukrainian army - senior, intermediate and even low-level officers," said Olexi Melnik, a former Ukrainian Air Force officer. He is currently the joint director of the Foreign Relations and International Security Programs at the Razumkov Center in Kiev. In September 2021, two months before the U.S. President Biden administration began to loudly warn Russia that it was about to attack and share the Russian army gathered intelligence on the Ukrainian border, Zalujne described the preparations for an attack that could come at any time.
"Since I took office, I have been talking about this issue - because it is a full-scale offensive threat," Zalugine said in an interview with Radio Svoboda at the time.
"So, our mission as an armed force is not to wait for the dew in heaven. We must be prepared for it, and have done everything for it. We are conducting a series of exercises, including our Western partners, including NATO members, and NATO partners. We can say that we are doing everything we can to make the enemy less willing to implement such a plan."
In January this year, Zalu spoke to the NATO Military Commission, the highest military institution of the alliance, telling them that the Ukrainian army was ready.
"I remind allies that our war has been going on since 2014 and we have been doing our work since then," he told the Ukrainian National News Agency after the meeting. What shocked the world was that on February 24, as the Russian tank drove towards Kiev, the missile hit targets across Ukraine, and the "full-scale aggression" scenario became a reality.
However, wider combat preparations have been underway since the Russian army rushed into Crimea in 2014, occupying the peninsula and turning Donbas into a permanent war zone.
In the next few years, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Poland , Lithuania and other NATO allies opened training centers in western Ukraine, including training for special operations forces. This training, as well as the battlefield experience of the Russians and their separatist agents in Donbas, allowed the commanders of small, dispersed troops to think independently, subverting the top-down old Soviet leadership model.
Currently, this model has paralyzed Russian troops and forced senior generals to venture to the front line, where several people have been killed.
" Ukrainians can stay flexible," a U.S. defense official told POLITICO that, like other current and former U.S. military officials, the official requested anonymity to discuss an assessment of the progress of the war and Ukraine's capabilities.
The official said that since 2014, the Ukrainians "can better adapt and react actively in a way that was not possible before."
He added that so far, the flexibility of the Ukrainians has changed the rules of the game in the face of Russia's fierce attack, and Russia has sent "a larger and more capable force, but their plans are rigid."
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Personal initiative launched by the Eight Years War
In July 1973, Zalurina was born in the military camp. His father was stationed in the town of New Grad Warrensky with his army, which was located in the th day Tomil in northern Ukraine, about 150 miles west of Kiev.
He studied at the Army Institute of the Odessa Military Academy and the National Defense Academy in Kiev, and completed his studies in 2007. He then held a series of positions, including the commander of a mechanized brigade. Later, Zalugine returned to the National Defense Academy for more training and graduated in 2014.
A few months ago, the Independence Square Revolution led to the then-President Victor Yanukovych fleeing to Russia, and the war in Donbas was intensifying.
Zaluzine was sent to the east to lead the combat troops to carry out active combat. In August 2014, a brigade commanded by Zalugine was deployed to the city of Debaltseve in , Donetsk Oblast, where some of the bloodiest battles occurred, with heavy casualties in the Ukrainian army.
In order to avoid further losses in Jebaliceway, then President Peter Poroshenko finally suffered greater pressure and had to sign the Minsk 2 peace agreement. But the terms of the agreement proved to be unfavorable to Ukraine.
In 2019, Zalujne was appointed as the head of the Northern Operations Command of the Ukrainian Army, stationed in Chernigov, northern Ukraine. This is his mother's hometown, near the border of Belarus , and he spent a long time there when he was a child.
In an interview with military news website ArmyInform in February 2020, Zalugine described being a soldier as a "dream" of his childhood, but he never expected to be a senior commander.
"My promotion is like an ordinary soldier. I was appointed and transferred. I accepted my duties, took office, and was assigned another one," he said. "I never thought that one day I would become a general and be promoted to a very high level."
Zalu was promoted to the highest position in a key part of a Ukrainian army's efforts. The Ukrainian army decided to reorganize leadership and divide operational duties and planning responsibilities within the General Staff.
This means a broader modern movement, with the Ukrainian army adopting new and more creative combat techniques based on combat experience against real rather than theoretical enemies.
"We want to get rid of the map and stop writing the battle orders of 1943," Zalugine said in an interview with ArmyInform.
However, ironically, Zalugine is now fighting an enemy that looks more like 1943 than 2022, at least in some respects.
tanks and armored vehicles shot at each other in open spaces and small villages, reminiscing the ugliest battles in World War II . But using drones to annihilate the logistics column, or adjusting firepower for Ukrainian forts several miles away from the frontline, also gives a look at a battle method that analysts have talked about for years but are now in use in Ukraine.
A former U.S. special forces officer has witnessed the changes in Ukrainian special operations forces over the years. He said that by 2020, the Ukrainian Commando [commandos], "look, smell, taste, and are like Western special forces."
The burning daily combat experience in Donbas over the past eight years means that those troops closest to combat have seen with their own eyes how critical the individual initiative in small units is in combat.
The young soldiers and their officers, "are all the people who burned from experience, they realized, hey, we can't give everything to the general before we make a decision," said retired US Army Collins.
Collins was John Abizade's supreme assistant. The latter was a retired four-star general. From 2016 to 2018, then-U.S. President Obama , sent him to Kiev to advise the Ukrainian military leadership.
Donbas's battle and NATO's practical training in western Ukraine have given birth to a new generation of small-uncommissioned officers [noncommissioned officers], who are able to think and act independently.
These changes were not immediate, but the knowledge gained from conventional small-scale combat accelerated "cultural changes below the battalion level," Collins said. "A whole generation has understood how to lead, and I think the generals understand that too."
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Cultural changes within the Ukrainian army
Zaluzine said that the Ukrainian army is full of young, professional soldiers and future leaders.
"This is a completely different person - unlike when we were lieutenants. These new buds will completely change the army in five years. Almost everyone is proficient in foreign languages, can use gadgets well, and they are all very knowledgeable," Zalugine told ArmyInform.
"They are all new sergeants [sergeants]. They are not scapegoats, just like in the Russian army, they are real helpers, and they will replace officers soon."
"We have started this movement and there is no way out," he added, "Even society will not allow us to return to the army in 2013."
Ukrainian soldiers used this year the fight-and-run tactics, which had a surprising impact, weakening Russia's military machine in a very practical way.
Among the 120 battalion-level tactical groups in Ukraine on February 24, 40 groups, including those leading the attacks on Kiev and Chernigov, have retreated to Belarus for training.
29 of these groups suffered huge losses against the Ukrainian team equipped with anti-armored weapons provided by the West and were unable to fight at present.
A Western official confirmed to POLITICO that some of these troops may take up to four weeks to make modifications and are ready to deploy to eastern Ukraine.
Thousands of javelins, stingers, Iron Fist [Panzerfaust] and other anti-armor and air defense missiles provided by NATO countries have become the main products of social media, giving birth to some emoticons, T-shirts and music videos, but the cultural changes within the Ukrainian army can be said to have had a greater impact on the battlefield.
NATO exercises have been a key factor in eliminating any trace of Soviet thinking—a thinking that left behind a legacy of corruption and complacency that lasted nearly a quarter of a century after independence.
"Their infantry, artillery, innovative skills, and ability to use drones and use them simultaneously are quite impressive," said a former U.S. officer who has traveled to Ukraine to advise the army many times, saying he asked to be anonymous to talk about training missions.
"Their special forces and airborne troops are excellent. When I first got there, there was a part of me who felt that they were more like the Soviet Union than the Russian army. But over time, you will see changes."
The aforementioned Melnik, who went from an air force officer to an analyst at the Razumkov Center in the think tank, said that success on the battlefield, including in the northern suburbs of Kiev, was a direct result of military modernization.
"NATO's tactics and training have been adjusted according to the actual situation in Ukraine - that's why it produced quite impressive results," Melnik said.
"We see the Russians moving these huge columns [columns]...it looks like the tactics of World War II . Instead, the Ukrainians took advantage of the advantage - they understand the terrain. They have these mobile troops and they attack and strike."
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striking Zalujine?
Zalu was appointed commander-in-chief in the first place, which is part of the larger reform of the Ukrainian army. Zelensky appointed him to the highest combat position in July 2021.
Previously, the Department of Defense made major personnel adjustments, and the military is also reorganizing military command departments to separate operations and policy functions, similar to the way the US military clearly defines responsibilities and responsibilities.
"The president wants to see the synergy between the Ministry of Defense and the Ukrainian armed forces," Zelensky's press secretary Sergei Nikifrov said at the time. "Unfortunately, we didn't see this synergy. What we see is conflict."
So Zelensky removed the position of then commander-in-chief Ruslan Homchak and appointed Zaluzine to replace him.
Zalugine later summarized his role in concise language. "Now, as the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, I am responsible for combat preparation, training and the use of the armed forces," he told Svoboda Radio in an interview last September.
Since Russia began a large-scale attack at the end of February, Zalujne has avoided most interviews and has made relatively few public appearances, while occasionally public statements are issued through his Facebook page.
Some of these posts are brief action updates about shooting down Russian fighter or destroying Russian tank columns. Others are quick messages, such as thanking military doctors, or sending encouragement to the troops and the Ukrainian public.
3-22: "Ukrainian armed forces are the shield of Europe."
3-27: "The cost of freedom is high. Remember this in mind!"
4-2: "Ukrainians have forgotten the fear. Our goal is victory."
Some other posts are long, including reading last Sunday his phone conversation with General Mark Milli, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, who has been in regular contact with the US Joint Chiefs of Staff.
For many years, Zalujine has made no secret of his efforts to promote more funding and other public support to the military. But during the war, his main requirement for political leaders was not to intervene and let the soldiers do their work - especially not to make the public doubt about the course of the war.
"I want to say something to politicians who talk about 'betrayal' in the rear cities and 'evaluating' the combat environment," Zalugine wrote.
"Your irresponsible remarks, such as, "the opponent has successfully taken something to some extent," or someone is "preparing to surrender," you are insulting our soldiers," he said, blasting the politicians who looked down on Ukraine in advance.
He said that Ukrainian troops have blocked the world's second most powerful army. "We stopped our opponents in all directions," he wrote. "We have caused them losses that they have never seen or unimagined. All Ukrainians know this. The whole world knows it."
Although the commander-in-chief has been trying to avoid any celebrity status, his success in repelling the Russian army so far has inevitably entered Ukrainian military legends as a historical figure.
A recent patriotism video even proposed a nickname that rhymes like "Storm Norman" in Ukrainian : Zalizni Nezlamnyy Zaluzhnyy. It means: Iron Unbreakable [Iron Unbreakable] Zalujine.
Of course, it is dangerous to praise the military leader. The war has only entered the first stage, and the more cruel battle in the eastern region is waiting ahead. Even if Ukraine is safe and sound, it remains to be wary of whether Zalugine will become Napoleon of Ukraine.
But so far, for Ukraine, it can be said that Zaluzine and Zelensky are equally important. Behind Zelensky, he determines the success or failure of Ukraine on the most critical battlefield.
