Putin Replaced Two Key Commanders In Ukraine

After the Ministry of Defense failed to fulfill its promises to quickly take the Donbas.

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on Wednesday a change in the commanders of Russian forces in Ukraine, who have been tasked with capturing the entire Donbas region as soon as possible, according to The Moscow Times.

The “Center” group, which operates in the northwestern and central parts of the Donetsk region, will be led by Andrei Ivanayev, who previously commanded the “Vostok” group, Putin announced at a meeting with the leadership of the Ministry of Defense.

“The ‘Center’ group is one of our leading units; it carries out the most important and critical tasks. And the question of who will lead the group, who will command it, is not a simple one,” Putin said. (as quoted by Interfax).

Solodchuk, who is accused of involvement in the Bucha massacre, has—according to Putin’s statements—been relieved of direct command of the troops and will henceforth head the Ministry of Defense’s unified Logistics Service. Putin has appointed the chief of staff of the “Vostok” group—which operates in the South Donetsk sector, near the administrative border between the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions—Pyotr Bolgayev to lead the group.

The Kremlin decided to replace the commanders shortly after the pace of the Russian offensive in Ukraine slowed sharply. According to the Ukrainian OSINT project DeepState, in July, General Staff generals managed to seize only 88 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory; in June, 57 square kilometers; and in May, the Russian army actually ended the month with a net territorial loss of 11 square kilometers. By comparison: in January–April, Russian forces captured 126–245 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory per month, and at the end of last year—about 500 square kilometers per month.

According to Reuters, the Russian General Staff promised Putin as early as last year that the Ukrainian front would soon collapse and that a belt of “fortress cities”—Konstantinovka, Druzhkivka, Slavyansk, and Kramatorsk—would fall under Russian control. This year, the timeline was pushed back first to the fall and then to the end of the year. However, even these dates are considered unrealistic by some military officials, who warn that the war for Donbas will continue into 2027, sources close to the Kremlin told Bloomberg.

According to the agency’s sources, despite the stalemate in the offensive and increasingly devastating strikes against the Ukrainian Armed Forces from Russian territory, Putin remains firmly committed to the complete capture of Donbas and has no intention of engaging in any peace talks without the Donetsk region under his control.

According to Financial Times sources, Putin’s ambitions may be much broader—extending as far as establishing control over the entire territory of Ukraine on the left bank of the Dnieper, including Kyiv and Odesa. “He’s being told that the Ukrainians are running out of steam, the front is crumbling, and they’re running out of troops,” one of the FT’s sources described the situation.

According to estimates by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), generals of the Russian General Staff were able to take control of 0.8% of Ukraine’s territory last year (4,831 square kilometers) and 0.6% in 2024 (3,604 square kilometers). Meanwhile, by mid-2026, the Russian army’s casualties had reached 1.4 million killed and wounded. This is more than the Soviet Union and Russia have lost in all their wars combined since World War II.

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