As the attacks continue back and forth….
Ukraine President Zelensky makes some top military leadership changes and gets into some hot water from his people….
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine removed his top general on Tuesday night amid swelling public protests and growing concerns that the national unity that had helped the country survive nearly five years of war was in danger of fracturing.
The dismissal of the general, Oleksandr Syrskyi, was a major reversal for Mr. Zelensky, who just days earlier sided with him and fired Ukraine’s defense minister, Mykhailo Fedorov.
Mr. Zelensky said he was replacing General Syrskyi with Maj. Gen. Mykhailo Drapatyi, the commander of the Joint Forces. The choice was likely to please the protesters, after Mr. Drapatyi had publicly sided with Mr. Fedorov in his clash with General Syrskyi over warfighting strategy.
Thousands of people had joined mass demonstrations to pressure Mr. Zelensky to change course and reaffirm Mr. Fedorov’s vision of warfare as increasingly dominated by drones and robots. As he championed a military overhaul that leaned into high-tech innovation, Mr. Fedorov, 35, emerged as a symbol of hope to many Ukrainians, particularly young people….
…
Mr. Zelensky said that he had been forced to choose between Mr. Fedorov and General Syrskyi as the differences between their camps had become impossible to resolve.
Ultimately, as the protests grew, it became clear that the rift extended far beyond a clash of personalities. For many Ukrainians, Mr. Fedorov embodied a tech-driven path to victory that might spare lives, while General Syrskyi had come to represent the darkest, most punishing realities of a war fought through sheer attrition….
…
After meeting with the president, Mr. Fedorov said a constructive dialogue to address his concerns had begun. “There will definitely be changes,” he said in a statement.
Since Ukrainians have largely accepted that there can be no elections while the war rages, mass demonstrations have become a pressure release valve and a check on power….
…
-
Medium and long-range strikes against Russia will continue under Mykhailo Drapatyi, Ukraine’s new top military commander, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Tuesday, as he replaced Oleksandr Syrskyi in the job after a huge political row accompanied by street protests. “The operations of the Ukrainian defence forces are ongoing and must continue steadily,” said the Ukrainian president. “Ukraine’s plan for long-range sanctions and our programme of middle-range strikes will be carried out with absolute precision.”
-
Luke Harding writes that news of Drapatyi’s appointment came in a late-night TV address by Zelenskyy. The president offered a “prominent position” to Mykhailo Fedorov – the defence minister he sacked last week in a shock move that brought out protesters who have given a deadline of Friday for Fedorov to be reinstated. Fedorov welcomed Drapatyi’s appointment as a “breath of fresh air” bringing “new hope to the struggle of free people for freedom and justice”.
-
Zelenskyy paid tribute to Syrskyi, crediting him with leading the defence of Kyiv and launching a counter-invasion of Russia’s Kursk province. Drapatyi, his replacement, is well regarded within Ukraine’s army and liked by the public, Harding writes. He is viewed as an ally of Fedorov, a tech-savvy moderniser. A major general, Drapatyi is commander of Ukraine’s joint forces group and has been fighting Russia since its covert attempt in 2014 to take over the eastern Donbas region. He is famed for driving an infantry fighting vehicle over a barricade set up by pro-Russian militants in Mariupol.
-
The Kremlin lamented the Ukrainian attacks on warehouses of Wildberries – an Amazon-like chain that Kyiv says supplies drone parts and other technologies for the Russian war effort. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said: “The situation is indeed difficult because of the losses suffered both by the company itself and by representatives of small and medium-sized businesses.”
-
Russian authorities are taking fuel away from Siberia and giving it to Moscow – Russia’s wealthiest and most populous region, where Vladimir Putin most fears losing the support of the Russian elite. The success of Ukrainian drone attacks on oil refineries, storage and shipping has caused fuel crises of varying degrees across Russia. Traders told Reuters that to replace lost production, gasoline produced in the Urals and Siberia, as well as imported supplies from Belarus, has been redirected to the Moscow region. One of the traders said the Achinsk refinery in Siberia’s Krasnoyarsk region has been supplying Moscow with fuel.
-
Civilian injuries and deaths increased by more than a third in Ukraine in the first half of the year, the UN human rights office said. It documented 1,396 deaths and 7,978 injuries in the first six months of 2026, representing a 37% increase from the same period last year and a near doubling versus 2024. Long-range ballistic missiles and drones, and short-range drones and glide bombs drove the escalation.
-
A Russian guided-bomb attack on the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia killed at least three people on Tuesday and injured more than a dozen, regional officials said. Two of the dead were in their 60s and the other was 49. Seven floors of a nine-storey apartment block were engulfed by flames after the attack, the regional military administration said.
ISW...Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, July 21, 2026
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky dismissed Ukrainian Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief General Oleksandr Syrskyi and appointed the Ukrainian Joint Forces Task Force Commander Major General Mykhailo Drapatyi as his replacement late on July 21.
- Russian authorities continue costly efforts to mitigate the loss of Russian oil refining capacity due to Ukrainian long-range strikes by subsidizing diesel imports.
- The Russian government continues exerting legal pressure on Russian migrants likely to coerce migrants into military service under threat of deportation.
- Polish authorities continue warning of a possible Russian provocation against NATO’s eastern flank.
- Ukrainian forces struck Russian manufacturing infrastructure and military assets overnight on July 20 and 21. Russia launched 58 drones against Ukraine overnight.
- Ukrainian forces recently advanced in the Oleksandrivka direction and in northern Kharkiv Oblast.
Daily Kos grunt Report for Today…..
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.