Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has fired Joint Forces commander Yurii Sodol following reports that he oversaw catastrophic battlefield losses. The dismissal appears to have been recommended by another senior military officer, who urged for an internal probe into Sodol’s poor leadership.
The president announced the move on his Telegram channel on Monday, saying that Sodol would be replaced by Brigadier General Andriy Hnatov. While he offered no reason for the decision, Sodol has courted controversy since taking over at Kiev’s Joint Forces in February.
Last Sunday, the chief of staff of the neo-Nazi Azov brigade, Bohdan Krotevych, published a lengthy social media post complaining about an unnamed commander, saying he had referred them to Ukraine’s State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) over their disastrous performance.
“I wrote a letter to the SBI calling for an investigation into one military general who, in my opinion, killed more Ukrainian soldiers than any Russian general,” he wrote. Krotevych added that the officer in question was responsible for “the loss of regions and dozens of cities and the loss of thousands of soldiers.”
A staffer on the Ukrainian parliament’s defense committee, Mariana Bezuhla, later claimed the Azov officer was referring to Sodol; local media reports have said much the same.
Other Ukrainian soldiers have also criticized Sodol’s leadership, including during his time as the head of Kiev’s Marine Corps prior to his promotion to Joint Forces chief. In comments to the New York Times last year, unnamed troops under Sodol’s command said he had sent them on a “suicide mission.” At the time, the newspaper did not name Sodol as the officer in charge, but it clarified his role with more recent reporting.
Sodol’s dismissal follows several other shake-ups within Kiev’s top military brass throughout the war with Russia. Earlier this year, long-time commander-in-chief General Valery Zaluzhny was sacked in the wake of a lackluster counteroffensive, which failed to reclaim much territory from Russian troops. Zelensky also abruptly replaced special forces commander Major General Viktor Horenko in late 2023, with the officer saying he learned of his firing from press reports.
Will Porter is assistant news editor at the Libertarian Institute and a regular contributor at Antiwar.com. Find more of his work at Consortium News and ZeroHedge.
I suppose this news item is important & relevant but the fountain of death is the concept that Ukraine be free to engage in an alliance that is hostile and has a history of serving the malign interests of America in overthrowing democratically elected leaders which Russia sees as an existential threat. Rather than be a good neighbor.
I suspect this guy was the commander of the absolute disaster that was the Krinky operation; night after night, ferrying ashore marines to sit on a mud flat in late fall/winter, with no cover, except to be bombed endlessly by Russian artillery and FPV drones, also hitting the boats bringing supplies and evacuating casualties. But Zelensky portrayed it as a "strategic initiative", and that same spin was parroted by the western media, (well, if you consider VOA to actually represent media)
https://www.voanews.com/a/how-ukrainian-special-forces-secured-a-critical-dnipro-river-crossing/7413472.html
or https://www.rferl.org/a/bridgehead-dnieper-russia-ukraine-counteroffensive/32684589.html
The second one is actually funny; how marines sitting on a mudflat going nowhere constitutes a strategic initiative.
So now, finally, the truth comes out; it was a disaster, resulting in huge casualties for zero gain. DUH. Funniest part is that it was the neoNZs of the Azov Brigade who dropped the dime.