Russia removes general in-charge of Syrian operations amid violent clashes in Aleppo

Shake-up in Russian military leadership amidst Syrian insurgency

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 defense ministry, and by the Voenny Osvedomitel (Military Informant) blog.

Reuters has requested comment from the Russian defense 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 recent insurgent advance in Syria marks the first significant escalation since March 2020, when Russia and Turkey—backers of opposing sides—agreed to a ceasefire that halted military operations in northwest Syria.

On Sunday, the Syrian army reported that it had regained control of several towns that had been overtaken by rebels in recent days. The insurgents are a coalition of Turkish-backed secular armed groups and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a powerful Islamist faction that remains one of the opposition’s strongest military forces.

Aleppo, which had been under government control since a decisive 2016 victory, was a key turning point in the Syrian war. At that time, Russian-backed Syrian forces laid siege to and devastated rebel-held areas of what was once the country’s largest city.

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