Western nations, along with Ukraine, are bracing for more brutality following Russia’s appointment of a new general to oversee the Kremlin’s attack on the former Soviet country.
Authorities warn that General Aleksandr Dvornikov, 60, who previously commanded Russia’s southern military district, also led sweeping military operations in Ukraine’s Donbas region and in Syria, resulting in the massacre of tens of thousands of civilians. , a brutal past that US authorities say. he may show his face in the Ukraine in the coming weeks.
The newly installed general comes as the Kremlin, now 46 days after its invasion, appears to have shifted its focus to eastern Ukraine following failed attempts to topple the government in kyiv.
“He and other high-ranking Russian leaders… have clearly demonstrated in the past their disregard for avoiding harm to civilians, their utter disregard in many ways for the laws of war, the laws of armed conflict, and brutality with which they carry out their operations,” the Pentagon said. Press Secretary John Kirby said of Dvornikov on Monday.
“I think sadly we can all hope that the same brutal tactics, that same disregard for civilian life and civilian infrastructure, will likely continue as they are now concentrated in a more geographically confined area in the Donbas.”
Known as the “Butcher of Syria,” Dvornikov was the first head of Russia’s military operations in the country after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered troops there in September 2015 to back Syrian President Bashar Assad.
In Syria, Dvornikov was part of a military campaign that bombed and razed densely populated neighborhoods in Aleppo, the country’s largest city, in which chemical weapons were used and banned cluster munitions were dropped by the Russian and Syrian armies.
Since 2016, Dvornikov has been the commander of Russia’s southern military district, responsible for the fighting in Donbas before the invasion of Ukraine that began on February 24.
Mason Clark, the top Russian expert at the Institute for the Study of War, acknowledged that while he was involved in brutal operations in Syria, the notion that Dvornikov was the “architect” of those campaigns is an exaggeration.
“He will certainly put that experience to good use,” Clark said. “But it’s not necessarily the kind of single figure that is the only one that has done these operations.”
Still, Dvornikov’s reputation has top US officials worried that the war will take a particularly violent turn and turn out to be much worse than has already been seen.
“What we should all be aware of… is that this is a general who was already responsible for overseeing the atrocities in Syria, and we would expect this to be a continuation of the kind of atrocities that we have already seen in Ukraine.” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Monday.
At the Pentagon, Kirby said Dvornikov could usher in “a very protracted and very bloody next phase of this conflict here.”
“I don’t know and I wouldn’t pretend to say that we know for a fact that this new general will be the author of some additional and bloodier new tactics, but we can certainly tell from what we have seen in the past…we are probably turning another page in the same Russian brutality book,” Kirby added.
National security adviser Jake Sullivan warned on Sunday that Ukraine should expect a “scorched-earth war” from Russia, adding that it is consistent with how the Kremlin has been fighting from the start.
“We have seen atrocities and war crimes and mass murder and horrific and shocking images of cities like Bucha and rocket attacks in Kramatorsk. So I think this is an indication that we’re going to see more of that,” Sullivan said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
John Herbst, former US ambassador to Ukraine and now senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, noted that Dvornikov’s appointment does not indicate a new tactic of targeting civilians, something the Russians have already done over the course of the war. invasion. Rather, it appears to be a turnaround after a disastrous start to the attack that initially appeared to have no unified plan of action or overall commander.
“Clearly their offensive in Ukraine, the first offensive with this invasion, failed. And now they’re starting a second round and they want a general with a track record of success,” Herbst said.
“Whether or not he does something new and clever, we’ll see. But clearly, whoever was in charge of the first round, they didn’t do very well. And it is normal for political leaders to replace failed military commanders,” he continued.
Dvornikov assumes his new role as Russia prepares for what is expected to be an all-out assault on Donbas, the industrial heartland of Ukraine and the easternmost part of the country.
Although the military offensive in Donbas has not yet started, Kirby said the Russians are working to reinforce and resupply their troops in the region, and a convoy of vehicles is seen heading south towards the city of Izyum, just north. and on the edge of Donbas.
Before that fight, Dvornikov must take on the arduous task of centralizing Russia’s forces, which have so far been plagued by morale and logistics problems, according to experts and defense officials.
Having only been a district commander, he now has to integrate units from the central and western military districts. Many of these units have had issues with missing officers, missing vehicles, low morale, and resupply issues.
“We certainly don’t think he’s superhuman,” Clark said. “The units of the southern military district have brought out the best of the Russian forces in this invasion. But that’s quite a low bar, frankly, and they’ve still run into difficulties and been unable to make progress to date in eastern Ukraine.”
Retired Brig. Gen. Kevin Ryan, a former US defense attache to Russia and now a senior fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center, said Dvornikov is still up against the limited number of troops Moscow is working with.
“He is a better commander, he will do a good job for the Russians. He will motivate the troops and solve the problems they have had. And he will be violent and he will cause damage in Ukraine,” Ryan said. “But he will work under the same restrictions and the same lack of resources that whoever he has been before worked under.”
Psaki also noted that even with the change in leadership, it does not erase Russia’s stumble in the early part of its invasion and continued struggles to show clear victories on the battlefield.
“It has not gone as President Putin planned and we do not expect a change in personnel to change that,” he said.
Reference-thehill.com