An expected reshuffle of Russian senior military leadership amounts to “rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic,” a military analyst has told Sky News.
The Kremlin is likely to change its top military brass after its winter offensive failed to make anything more than marginal gains at the cost of thousands of lives, according to the Institute for the Study of War thinktank.
But retired Air Vice-Marshal Sean Bell said the moves will be meaningless if Russia does not address systemic problems with the military.
They have struggled because they are not using conventional military surge and pause tactics, instead engaging in grinding attrition, he said.
He explained that commanders have employed 20th century warfare strategies, used inexperienced troops and attacked during winter, forcing their battle tanks onto main roads and resulting in two thirds of them being destroyed.
“We expect to see another reshuffle of the senior military leadership but frankly that’s rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic because actually they need to sort of systemic problems in the Russian military,” said the analyst.
Military officials replaced in January and February have been recalled to the Joint Grouping Headquarters in Russia, prompting speculation they will be asked to reassert control of their former departments, the ISW reported today.
For context: The Kremlin has regularly restructured its top brass over the course of the war, either dissatisfied with military progress or to reconsolidate Vladimir Putin’s political control of Russia’s varied fighting forces.
