28.01.2023.

The appointment of Gerasimov returns Prigozhin to secondary roles

It seems that the experiments with Surovikin and Prigozhin in Russia are over. For the long-term war in Ukraine, which Putin intends to lead, staff generals are needed, writes Ivan Preobraženski.
Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov has been appointed commander of the Russian Joint Forces Group (JDF) in Ukraine, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced. His deputies are Army General Sergei Surovikin, Army General Oleg Salyukov, Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Forces, and Lieutenant General Alexei Kim, Deputy Chief of the General Staff.
Thus, the command of the group of Russian troops in Ukraine returns to the hands of the staff generals, who in recent months have been harshly criticized by the head of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov, the owner of PMC "Wagner" Yevgeny Prigozhin and many warmongering propagandists.
 
Sometimes they come back
Sergei Surovikin, "General Armageddon" according to Russian propagandists, a favorite of Margarita Simonyan, Ramzan Kadyrov, Yevgeny Prigozhin and, according to reports, President Putin himself, has been transferred to the status of deputy commander of Russian forces in Ukraine. There was a kind of return to the sources.
After Kadyrov's harsh criticism of General Aleksandr Lapin and rumors of his physical dismissal, Lapin was appointed to a new position with a promotion, and then Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov became commander of the armed forces waging war against Ukraine. This is the general who is credited with the authorship of the so-called "Gerasimov doctrine", dedicated to the tactics and strategy of conducting hybrid wars.
It is difficult to say what this means from a military point of view - perhaps Surovikin's strategy of creating a humanitarian disaster in Ukraine with missile strikes on energy infrastructure facilities has been recognized as wrong.
There is another conditional good news in this. At the very beginning of the war, at the First Anti-War Conference in Vilnius, former Yukos co-owner Leonid Nevzlin openly said that the resignation of Sergei Shoigu or Valery Gerasimov himself would mean a sharp increase in the risk of Russia using nuclear weapons. Based on this thesis, the new reconstruction shows that at least decision-making is returning to the hands of those who, as is commonly believed, are not ready to drop an atomic bomb on Ukraine at the risk of provoking a third world nuclear war. .
Prigogine was shown to his rightful place?
 
The changes that took place in the command may also affect the fate of Yevgeni Prigozhin. He managed better than others to use the aggression against Ukraine to increase his influence on Russian politics in general. This sponsor of smugglers and owner of a private military company has grown into a serious personality in the media space in just a few months.
 
Prigozhin allows himself to accuse Alexander Beglov, the governor whom Putin delegated to St. Petersburg, of working for Ukraine, demands the resignation of generals, criticizes not only the Russian General Staff, but also the administration of the president and oligarchs close to Putin. Rumors spread that Prigozhin had created his own political party, and even about his nomination for president during the 2024 elections. This would be too much for Russia's dictatorial regime, which encourages loyalty and mediocrity rather than independence.
And it seems that the president's entourage decided to crush a person with a criminal past who was entrusted with the ownership of a private military company. He continues to try to remind Putin of his irreplaceability, saying his soldiers have captured Soledar, but the Russian Defense Ministry coldly refutes the boast. Also, presidential press secretary Dmitro Peskov declares that the Kremlin has no information about dead British citizens, directly putting Prigozhin in his place after the owner of Wagner's PMC published the passports of British volunteers who were apparently killed in the Bakhmut region.
Of course, under a dictatorial regime, almost any career coups are possible, and it cannot be ruled out that in the near future we will see the appointment of Prigozhin, after Gerasimov, to some high office. Doesn't Vladimir Putin, who apparently lives in an alternative real information space, think of many things? But at the moment it seems that it has been decided to put Prigozhin in a position that is in the second, or even the third row of Russian politics.
Putin has no strategy
This regular change of generals, the appointment of new commanders, the departure of some and the arrival of others testify to what has long been known, the Russian president is confused in his own military adventure and is trying to reformat it.
It is unlikely that these actions of the Supreme Commander will allow the Russian military to develop a coherent strategy this time. So, let's wait for the next reconstructions, when Putin will again be disappointed in the new appointees, and the Russian army will suffer new significant losses, as in Makievka and near Bakhmut, or will leave the new territories that are currently occupied, as in the past, the Kharkiv region and Kherson .