While Ukraine’s president appears ready to vacate the head of his armed forces, some soldiers fighting against Russia on the eastern front are skeptical, but say a lot also depends on who replaces him, Reuters reported, taken from News.ro.

In an interview published on Sunday, President Volodymyr Zelenskyi said he was considering replacing the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces Valery Zaluzhny as part of a wider military reshuffle of the military hierarchy.

Most Ukrainians perceive Zaluzhny as a hero, many remember the stunning victories over Russia in 2022 over the failure of last year’s counteroffensive.

“I think this dismissal would be inappropriate now, because commanders on the battlefield do not change,” said the 31-year-old commander of an anti-tank unit, who asked to be identified by the call sign “Tiger”.

The 59th Tiger Brigade is fighting on a section of the front in eastern Donetsk region near Avdiyivka, a city built around a huge coke plant that bore the brunt of Russia’s second winter assault.

The soldier, carefully choosing his words and speaking in the basement of the house where he rested between rotations at the front, said that a lot depends on who will replace Zaluzhny. “The most popular (commanders) are those who are here and fighting alongside the guys in the trenches,” he said. Tiger added that whoever was in charge would have to supply the front with fresh troops to replace tired soldiers, as well as more drones, both demands that Zaluzhny had insisted on.

The importance of the personality of the next commander is emphasized by Captain Ihor, 33 years old. “Before you fire someone from a position, especially one of this importance, you need to know who will replace that person and what they see the future of the situation,” he says. “If our government wants to change someone, then these changes should be made only for the better, not for the worse,” the commander emphasizes.

A poll conducted in December 2023 by the International Institute of Sociology in Kyiv showed that 72% of Ukrainians would perceive Zaluzhnyi’s release negatively and only 2% positively.

Soldiers who spoke to Reuters were careful not to express harsh views in the dispute, which has pitted their commander-in-chief against the president, who leads the armed forces.

But Mykola, a 59-year-old man who drives a truck with a GRAD missile launcher, said he believed Zaluzhny was embroiled in a political dispute. “Everyone thinks that in 2022 we made some progress… But in 2023 (not so much). This does not mean that the Zaluyns managed the armed forces badly,” Mykola believes.

The long-standing tension between Zelenskyi and Zaluzhny over the conduct of the war reached a peak when the question of mobilization arose.

Zaluzhny said the army wants to recruit up to 500,000 men by 2024, something the president opposes, the source said, although his government has submitted a bill to parliament to boost army recruitment.

Troops in Donetsk Oblast, many of whom volunteered not expecting to fight for two years in a full-scale war, have been told they don’t want to bear the full brunt of the conflict. “Mobilization is necessary because we don’t have enough people, the enemy has a big advantage over us in terms of the number of soldiers,” Igor said.

Tiger estimated that 60-70% of the men of the original 59th Brigade were still on duty, and it was unable to fill all the gaps left by those killed, wounded or otherwise withdrawn.

59-year-old Mykola said that she will go home when she turns 60 according to the current rules. He said he feels sorry for the young soldiers who don’t have that opportunity. “Everyone should understand that the whole country of Ukraine is at war, not only those who have been fighting for the past two years,” he says.

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