In its war with Russia – started in February 2022 as a result of President Vladimir Putin’s aggression – Ukraine eventually proved able to invade and hold Russian territory. This obviously has caused Putin to be displeased with his military commanders as the conflict now approaches the three year mark. This is especially so since Putin anticipated Ukrainian forces would simply roll over when Russia invaded.
During the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln famously fired five generals for their lack of initiative in taking the war to the enemy before finally finding one to lead the North to victory. Putin has outdone Lincoln, demonstrating his frustration by having dismissed at least eight senior military commanders, ending their careers.
Putin fired his first general three months into the war for failing to capture Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city. That same month he fired his Black Sea Fleet commander after Ukraine – which has no navy to speak of – sank that fleet’s flagship, the cruiser Moskva. The firings continued – one occurring in February 2023 after a failed Russian offensive to take the Ukrainian coal-mining city of Vuhledar, which Moscow claimed beforehand would swing the war in its favor. Not only did Russia fail to do so, the three-week battle saw Russian tanks running over Russian troops.
This war has come at a high cost in human lives to both sides. As of December 2024, Ukraine admits to losing 43,000 men with another 370,000 wounded. But Russia, at 198,000 killed in action, has paid an even higher price, averaging losses of more than 4-to-1 compared to the Ukrainians. Another 550,000 Russians have been wounded.
While Russia obviously has a much larger population of young men to press into military service than does Ukraine, nonetheless, Putin realizes the Russian people have a breaking point at which the losses become so widespread that they will trigger public opposition to the war. He lacks the option the old Soviet Union had while fighting in Afghanistan (1979-1989) of quietly shipping its wounded off to hospitals located within its Warsaw Pact allies so as to limit drawing attention from the local Soviet population. […]
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