Russia removes general in charge of Syrian operation

2/12/2024 6:08

        Russian war bloggers reported
        on Sunday that Moscow has dismissed Sergei Kisel, the general in
        charge of its forces in Syria, after insurgents swept into the
        city of Aleppo in the biggest challenge to President Bashar
        al-Assad in years.
        
        Russia is a key Assad ally. The removal of Kisel, 53, was
        reported by the Rybar Telegram channel, which is close to the
        Russian defence ministry, and by the Voenny Osvedomitel
        (Military Informant) blog.
        
        Reuters has requested comment from the Russian defence
        ministry. Since the start of the Ukraine war, Russia has made a
        number of military reshuffles that were not publicly announced.
        
        Unconfirmed reports said Kisel was being replaced by Colonel
        General Alexander Chaiko.
        
        The military blogs were scathing about the performance of
        Kisel, who previously commanded Russia's 1st Guards Tank Army in
        the Kharkiv region of Ukraine, where Moscow's forces were driven
        back in a lightning counter-attack by Ukrainian troops in late
        2022.
        
        "Apparently he was supposed to reveal his hidden talents in
        Syria, but something got in the way again," Voenny Osvedomitel
        wrote.
        
        Rybar commented: "The approach needs to change. The Syrian
        sandbox has long been a place for laundering the reputations of
        unsuccessful generals who turned out to be incompetent in the
        zone of the special military operation" - Russia's term for the
        war in Ukraine.
        
        Rybar speculated that Russia might even turn to Sergei
        Surovikin, a general who earned the nickname "General
        Armageddon" for his ruthlessness in Syria and was briefly in
        charge of the Ukrainian war effort. Surovikin was demoted last
        year, when unconfirmed reports said he had been investigated for
        possible complicity in a mutiny by Russia's Wagner mercenary
        group.
        
        The insurgent advance in Syria was the first since March
        2020 when Russia and Turkey, which supports the rebels, agreed
        to a ceasefire that led to the halting of military action in
        northwest Syria.
        
        On Sunday, the Syrian army said it had recaptured several
        towns that had been overrun by rebels in recent days. The
        insurgents are a coalition of Turkish-backed mainstream secular
        armed groups, along with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an Islamist group
        that is the opposition's most formidable military force.
        
        Aleppo had been held by the government since a 2016 victory
        there, one of the war's major turning points, when
        Russian-backed Syrian forces besieged and laid waste to
        rebel-held eastern areas of what had been the country's largest
        city.