Ukraine’s military must modernise to win war, new commander says

Kyiv’s new top general said its military must adapt its methods, master innovative technology and improve its planning and logistics to defeat the Kremlin’s invasion force, as Moscow called him a “traitor” and Ukrainian drones hit two oil refineries in southern Russia.

Oleksandr Syrskyi – who was born in Russia in 1965 and moved to Ukraine in the 1980s, when both were still part of the Soviet Union – said “new tasks are on the agenda” after replacing Valeriy Zaluzhnyi as commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces.

“The introduction of new technical solutions and the scaling of successful experience, such as the use of unmanned systems [and] modern means of radio-electronic warfare, is one of the future vectors for building victory in our war of liberation,” he said.

“Only changes and constant improvement of the means and methods of warfare will make it possible to achieve success on this path,” he added in a post on social media.

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Military planners must supply frontline troops with everything they need as efficiently as possible, and units must find a “balance” between performing combat duties and training and integrating new personnel, Col Gen Syrskyi said.

[ Zelenskiy faces a battle to revive public mood and army morale after replacing his top military commander ]

He did not mention the key task of bringing potentially hundreds of thousands of new soldiers into the ranks to replace troops who have been killed and injured and those left exhausted by almost two years of all-out war with Russia. A new bill on military mobilisation is now making its way through parliament.

Republicans in the US Congress are blocking a bill that would send $60 billion (€56 billion) in vital military aid to Kyiv because they want US border security to take priority.

Ukraine’s ambassador to the US, Oksana Markarova, told Bloomberg that “we still have enough people who want to fight” but warned that “we’re running out of equipment, especially missiles and interceptors… We need this support yesterday.”

Kyiv announced this week that drone forces would become a new branch of its military, and sources in its SBU security service said on Friday that the agency’s drones had hit two oil refineries in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region.

[ Zelenskiy replaces Ukraine’s top general and demands ‘urgent’ changes in army ]

“These refineries are legitimate targets. Not only do they work for [Russian] defence and provide fuel for Russian troops, but they are also important for the Russian economy,” an unnamed SBU source told Ukrainian media.

Russia said it intercepted 19 Ukrainian drones and Ukraine said it shot down 10 of 16 drones launched by Moscow’s forces.

Dmitry Medvedev, a former president of Russia who is now deputy chairman of its security council, repeated baseless claims that Ukraine, a pro-western democracy, is run by “Nazis”, and said reading about Col Gen Syrskyi’s Russian birthplace made him feel “hatred, contempt and disgust”.

“Hatred for everyone involved in the collapse of the Soviet Union (and, in fact, the Russian Empire), as a result of which a huge country that balanced the world order disappeared,” he wrote on social media. “Disgust for a man who was a Soviet Russian officer but became a … traitor who broke his oath and serves the Nazis, destroying his own kin.”

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