MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian war bloggers reported on Sunday that Moscow had fired Sergei Kisel, the general in charge of its forces in Syria, after insurgents stormed the city of Aleppo in a major challenge to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a Russian ally, in years.
The removal of Kisel, 53, was reported by the Rybar Telegram channel, which is close to the Russian Ministry of Defense, and by the blog Voenny Osvedomitel (Military Informant).
Reuters requested comment from the Russian Defense Ministry. Since the start of the war in Ukraine, Russia has made a series of military overhauls that have not been publicly announced.
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Unconfirmed media reports said Kisel was replaced by Colonel General Alexander Chaiko.
Military blogs were scathing about the performance of Kisel, who previously commanded Russia’s 1st Guards Tank Army in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, where Moscow’s forces were repulsed in a lightning counterattack by Ukrainian troops at the end of 2022.
“Apparently, he was supposed to reveal his hidden talents in Syria, but something got in the way again,” wrote Voenny Osvedomitel.
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Rybar commented: “The approach needs to change. The Syrian sandbox has long been a place to launder the reputations of unsuccessful generals who turned out to be incompetent in the special military operation zone” – Russia’s term for the war in Ukraine.
Rybar speculated that Russia could even turn to Sergei Surovikin, a general who earned the nickname “General Armageddon” for his ruthlessness in Syria and who was briefly in command of the Ukrainian war effort. Surovikin was demoted last year when unconfirmed reports said he had been investigated for possible complicity in an anti-Russian mutiny by the Wagner mercenary group.
The insurgents’ advance into Syria was the first since March 2020, when Russia and Turkey, which supports the rebels, agreed to a ceasefire that led to a halt to military action in northwestern Syria.
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On Sunday, the Syrian army said it had recaptured several towns that had been overrun by rebels in recent days. The insurgents are a coalition of traditional secular armed groups backed by Turkey, along with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an Islamist group that is the most formidable military force opposing Assad.
Aleppo had been under Syrian government control since 2016, when Russian-backed Syrian forces besieged and devastated eastern areas that were controlled by the rebels.
